Horrible fencing accident at Nationals

[k9fav]

Heard that a lady got stabbed through the neck during the Vets WS 40+ event, anyone know how she is doing and what happened?

[Peach]

Originally Posted by k9fav

Heard that a lady got stabbed through the neck during the Vets WS 40+ event, anyone know how she is doing and what happened?

Not that horrible--just bloody. I talked to her (Kimberly Klein-Braddock) today while she was sitting watching fencing with her husband, who I believe is a doctor and gave me a nice technical description most of which I forget. Anyway, she's fine now. Her opponent's blade penetrated the skin of her neck, went under it and upwards, and came out again, I believe scratching the artery so that she bled quite a bit. She was taken to the hospital but she was chatting and chuckling with me today.

Her opponent in the semifinal bout, Hongyun Sun, was so shaken by the accident that she withdrew before the final bout. So Robin Pernice was first, Hongyun was second, Kim was third, and Denise FitzSimon was also third.

[Purple Fencer]

And THIS is why the tips of sabre blades should be chamfered...Dan DeChaine's been pushing for this, and after a couple of incidents at Jr. Worlds, he's finally being heard on it.

Barry Paul....take the lead on this and chamfer the tips of your sabre blades (if you don't already)...I'll probably be doing so on the StM blades I buy.

[Peach]

One caution--I don't know whether the blade broke or not. I had heard it broke, but didn't confirm that in the conversation with Kim, so I left that bit out. If anybody knows, post, please. I'll check tomorrow.

[sabersaber]

very very scary. Ed Korfanty seemed to notice that something was wrong with her. She just stood there in a daze, Korfanty went to see what was wrong, then blood started streaming down her lame from the neck area.

[bigdawg2121]

I was talking with the ref on that strip during his break shortly after that bout and I recall him saying that the blade did indeed break.

[Purple Fencer]

Well, if the blade broke, there's not a lot you can do to make it safer...maraging steel is NOT designed to break flat...the breakage pattersn are identical betwen crbon and maraging steel....(thought I'd bring that up before someone else does)

The chanfering of the tip is STILL a valid thought, tho...

[edew]

I talked to Pete Harmer about the incident. He said that she was lucky to have the accident then (lucky in the odd-ball sense of if she were to have such an accident that would be the place). Her husband's an ER doc, there was another doc who specialized in head and neck injuries, and another EMT person all around the area.

That said, it was a broken blade.

More, Peter said that chamfering the tips isn't enough. LP's idea of conductive plastic sleeves at the tip for saber is a good idea at least until the FIE decides on what to do with saber. (Thicker, heavier blades? Bigger guards?) I'm in favor of both. Maybe youth fencers can use the thinner existing blades, but still with bigger guards. The bigger guards will help prevent the hand injuries which have been cropping up of late.

[Purple Fencer]

Originally Posted by edew

The bigger guards will help prevent the hand injuries which have been cropping up of late.

That and an actual manufacturing standard for gloves....which right now does NOT exist.

FIE's finally starting to look into it...and you've seen MY attempt to make a safer one....still working on that.

[Gav]

I have to say that I think that a knee-jerk obsession with safety following this accident is understandable though not necessarily a good idea.

If you alter the equipment, and here I am talking more about: the size of guards, blade properties etc, then you do more than alter the safety aspects - you will also alter the game itself. I couldn't possibly comment on whether that is a good idea or not.

With fencing being (generally) one of the safest sports I have ever taken part in, I think that the changes being proposed should be approached with at least a little caution.

If it's true that a broken blade is the root cause of this injury then no amount of tinkering is going to remove that type of injury risk.

----


Purple's investigation into making the glove safer (to avoid hand injuries) is very interesting. My input into that project would be to remember the trade-off between flexibility (finger pay being an important part of fencing) and protection. I wouldn't want to wear a glove that protected me from occasional hand injury if it meant I couldn't wield an epee effectively*.

*Though some say that is already a problem of mine ...

[sabreur]

You know, guys, as a sabre fencer, I'd like to know how larger guards, heavier, thicker blades or any of the other stuff y'all are talking about have anything to do with this particular accident.

We're talking about a broken blade going under a mask--bad accident--luckily did not result in any serious injury.

But it has nothing to do with the size of the point on a sabre, and a larger guard, bulletproof glove or different kind of blade would not have prevented it (even if the blade was maraging, it wouldn't have made any difference, and a heavier or thicker blade probably would have caused more injury...).

Hand injuries are probably caused by bad fencers whacking away at the hand to try to use the new timings to block out the other guy... the solution is to adjust the timings to make this sort of tactic less attractive, not to dick with the size of the guard.

I think there is an issue involving the increased stiffness of the blades and point attacks--I know that I have become quite leary of using point attacks in simultaneous situations, because I'm concerned about hurting my opponent if the blade were to break... And there is somewhat of an issue with point attacks in any case, because they hurt, although I would suggest that they don't hurt any worse than an epee to the chest hurts, and probably less.

MR

[telkanuru]

What does possibly have relevance here are the inadaquate and frequently nonexistant blade catches on lames... Yay that no one is dead though.

[Phrogger]

Originally Posted by Gav

I have to say that I think that a knee-jerk obsession with safety following this accident is understandable though not necessarily a good idea.

It doesn't have to be knee-jerk, but a careful safety study of each serious accident is not only warranted, but wise. Every accident has a cause and if the USFA doesn't have a safety committee, maybe they should establish one. I'm not saying that every twisted ankle needs to be reviewed, but a serious accident like this could and should have been prevented by the equipment. Not everything should be written off as "just one of the risks you take in fencing."

That said, does anyone else think that it's ironic that you hear about more accidents with sabre than with the actual stabbing weapons (epee, foil)?

[DonnaP]

I had just lost my bout to Kimberly who moved on to the semi-final round to fence Hunyung. I was watching from only a few feet away. There was blade contact and Hunyung's blade broke about 3 inches from the tip (Neither Hunyung nor Kim were aware at the time the tip had broken) - Hunyung finished her action which was a long point attact - more epee style - the tip of the blade went up and under Kim's mask bib - thus hitting her neck. My thoughts on the matter are whether or not a protective fold at the neck of her lame could have made a difference - isn't that why we have those on our whites and lames?? She was wearing an Infinity lame - no neck fold - got me wondering about my Leon Paul lame which also has no fold. It is entirely possible that the tip of the blade would have gone over the fabric anyway, or may have penetrated the fabric - but I still can't help thinking that this is one small safety feature that may have made a difference and is already in place. I mentioned my concerns at least to Leon Paul who said they would at least put some thought into it.

[sabreur]

As a note, my Allstar sabre lame does have blade catcher at the throat--however, like DonnaP, I wonder how effective it would be. Maybe they need to allow the neck of lames to be made out of regular 800N material, and require a blade catcher.

Now that would be an appropriate response....

MR

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by Gav

If it's true that a broken blade is the root cause of this injury then no amount of tinkering is going to remove that type of injury risk.

With all due respect, I think that you are not completely informed about all metal alloys that exist.

[mechanical engineer mode on]
What you need is an alloy that is not brittle, i.e. has a high elongation at break. This material parameter is highly variable, and it depends both on alloy composition and heat treatment. However, it is important that many steels are fairly low in this respect, so that there is room for improvement.

High-end springs are sometimes made of beryllium-copper alloy, since it has excellent elonggation at break, high elonggation at plastication, excellent corrosion resistance. This combination of properties is also useful for fencing blades. Some properties are listed below, emphasis is mine:

Originally Posted by Matweb.com

Beryllium Copper, UNS C17200, TD01 Temper Strip

Subcategory: Beryllium Alloy; Copper Alloy; Metal; Nonferrous Metal

Component Wt. %
Be 1.8 - 2
Co + Ni Min 0.2
Co + Ni + Fe Max 0.6
Cu 97
Other Max 0.5
Pb Max 0.1

Material Notes:
Good to excellent corrosion resistance. Excellent cold workability; good hot formability. Commonly fabricated by blanking, forming and bending, turning, drilling, tapping.

Applications: springs, flexible metal hose, Bourdon tubing, bellows, clips, washers, retaining rings, and other parts subject to severe forming conditions but require high strength, anelasticity, and fatigue and creep resistance; in parts that require high strength or wear resistance along with good electrical conductivity and/or magnetic characteristics such as navigational instruments, non-sparking safety tools, firing pins, bushings, valves, pumps, shafts, and rolling mill parts.

Physical Properties Metric
Density 8.25 g/cc

Mechanical Properties
Hardness, Rockwell B 68 - 90
Hardness, Rockwell B 45 - 85
Hardness, HR30T 62 - 75
Hardness, Vickers 150 - 190
Tensile Strength, Ultimate 415 - 585 MPa
Tensile Strength, Yield 415 - 605 MPa At 0.2% offset
Elongation at Break 35 - 60 % For all sizes, in 50 mm
Modulus of Elasticity 125 - 130 GPa
Poisson's Ratio 0.3
Fatigue Strength 215 - 250 MPa Reversed Bending; 10^8 cycles
Machinability 20 % UNS C36000 (free-cutting brass) = 100%
Shear Modulus 50 GPa

Electrical Properties
Electrical Resistivity 9.57833e-006 - 1.07756e-005 ohm-c at 20°C

Thermal Properties
Specific Heat Capacity 0.42 J/g-°C
Thermal Conductivity 105 - 130 W/m-K
Melting Point 865 - 980 °C
Solidus 865 °C
Liquidus 980 °C

So, we have a material which has comparable density to steel, while 62% of its elastic modulus. In order to maintain stiffness, a blade of CuBe should then have 13% larger cross-sectional dimensions, not a large difference. The tensile strength is high, and it has been tested at large stresses in alternating bending for 100 million load cycles, orders of magnitude more than what a sabre blade will undergo. It will in all likelyhood not snap in cold, and since the electical conductivity is considerably better than steel, that is not a limiting factor. To top it off, it will not rust.

There are several other metal alloys with very high elongation at break. Many of them are Copper-Beryllium based, with some other copper alloys. Various grades of Hastelloy also fit the bill, those have mechanical properties which will make them scoff at anything fencing could throw at them. Some very few high-end stainless steels also fit the bill.

If one looks at which metallic elements have reasonable (at least 15%) elongation at break, one finds 52 matches. However, most of them are useless to this application due to high cost (silver, gold, platinum, hafnium, palladium), poisonous (cadmium, thallium), radioactive (promethium, technetium) low elastic modulus and corrosion resistance (magnesium, calcium, several lanthanides), too high elastic modulus (rhenium). Still, that leaves alloy possibilities for combinations of beryllium, copper, nickel, molybdenum, niobium, iron, vanadium and titanium. Pure titanium is light, biologically inert (used for surgical implants), corrosion resistant, and has a whopping elongation at break value - 54%. That should be compared with the elongation at break values for maraging steels. The highest value at room temperature was 18%. Three times lower.

[engineer mode off]


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Gav]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Hi!




With all due respect, I think that you are not completely informed about all metal alloys that exist.

etc...
etc..

Peter,

So you are telling me that a metal exists that will not have any flaws [from any part of the the manufacturing process], will not break through usage and [in short] is 100% reliable in all fencing situations? I suppose I should also ask whether it's would be affordable (within the tolerances of your average fencer's pocket) too?

Although I suppose it would be a blade for life ...

Hell; it must be a vendor conspiracy to keep us dipping into our pockets...

[gtmac]

Hey, sabreur, your sig seems a little more severe than usual in the context of this thread.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by Gav

Peter,

So you are telling me that a metal exists that will not have any flaws [from any part of the the manufacturing process], will not break through usage and [in short] is 100% reliable in all fencing situations? I suppose I should also ask whether it's would be affordable (within the tolerances of your average fencer's pocket) too?

Although I suppose it would be a blade for life ...

Hell; it must be a vendor conspiracy to keep us dipping into our pockets...

I am not saying that it is flawless (for starters, beryllium must be handled with care in the metallurgical process), but that there are alloys which have properties meriting a closer look. There could be drawbacks not obvious when checking Matweb, although I doubt that they would be big.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Gav]

So Peter,

You are now telling me that you cannot rule out flaws in the blade, or a break through usage?

And there was me hoping to have a blade for life ... So much for ruling out risk through breakage.