Craziest Accidents On The Strip

[FHPyro4L]

really, i've heard some pretty wild stories. something about a weapon shattering and a shard of metal thin enough to go through the mask, went throw some kid's eye and he died... not too sure about the reliability of my source though.. heh heh.. but really, got any good stories, anyone?

[Dav3ey]

If this is going to be an fencing injury urban legend thread, then here's one:

While I was in the Army, a friend of mine told me that he had heard of someone who, before the turn-down on the collar of the jacket, had a foil blade slide off his chest, go up under his bib, into his mask, UP HIS NOSE, and into his brain.

Of course, the subject purportedly survived! But alas, he had the unfortunate luck to have that part of his brain that recalled all names of produce (that's right -- lettuce, broccoli, carrots, &c.) destroyed, leaving him unable to name just about everything in the first aisle of the supermarket. Still knew it was edible, just couldn't tell you what it was called.

[magma]

more people are buying fie blades, because they don't shatter. they're very expensive, but it's better to use for competition, and then use regular blades for practice?

i spent a day reviewing the equipment catalog by catalog, and there's so much out there; some vendors have a lot of stuff, others very skimpy.

I used to get shot in the bib all the time when i fenced foil my first year or two, i used to sit low, but hadn't great mobility, the student has to move back, or move something to avoid the bib up the nose thing.

Here's one for the vendors: make a detachable fie bib that snaps onto the jacket.

non-fie blades also bend so much at the tip, that fencers lose points because of it, but it could also be that the manufacturer of a particular blade hasn't made a really great blade. So, for example: vendors might consider: fie masks only; getting rid of non-insulated masks; making only blades that won't shatter; the rest of the stuff seems to work without too much of a problem.

Students should be encouraged after a while to shift over to FIE. Every once in a while someone has a great deal on FIE stuff, pick through and see what's out there: the fencing post had great fie knickers for $99. another vendor [american or santelli, i forgot] had a great deal on their own fie standard two weapon mask.

[Artisan]

Originally posted by FHPyro4L
really, i've heard some pretty wild stories. something about a weapon shattering and a shard of metal thin enough to go through the mask, went throw some kid's eye and he died... not too sure about the reliability of my source though.. heh heh.. but really, got any good stories, anyone?

I think you are referring to the story about the Russian (Smirnov) who suffered that fate in 1985 at a world championship (I think). He died a week later from the injury.

A kid at a local foil comp recently had his ear lacerated somehow, bad enough to require an ER visit. He had turned to see the lights, and his opponent made a late attack from prime, I didn't see the action though - hard to image how it occurred. Though the incident is proof that the "no turning your back" rule is a good one.

Lastly, a fellow vet fencer recounted a story from his college days some 45+ years ago: Fencing for one of the Ivy's, his weapon broke during an attack, and the remaining portion passed through his opponents flank. He withdrew it immediatly (properly recovering) and was suprised at how little resistance he encountered, both going an and coming out. Only then did he realize what happened. His "victim" recovered with minor surgury.

[epeefencer74]

I've got one that happend here only last year. In a junoirs epee comp, one boy, whom we shall refer to as M, performed a lunge against his opponent, R, who also rushed forward to initiate an attack at the same time. M's lunge caught the R square in the chest and because of the R's forward motion, the blade broke and penetrated the R's chest. M didn't look like he had time to withdraw his arm before the broken portion penetrated. Anyway the bout was stopped and R was taken to the hospital where it was diagnosed that had the blade gone in a centimeter deeper and 2 centimeters to the left, R would have died. In the investigation that followed it was found that R was not wearing a plastron even though it was a standard competition ruling. Although in this comp FIE stuff wasn't required, so there's some question to whether a non FIE plastorn would have help prevent the accident.

[Repechage]

Originally posted by Artisan
I think you are referring to the story about the Russian (Smirnov) who suffered that fate in 1985 at a world championship (I think). He died a week later from the injury.

1982 Rome world championships. Matthias Behr's blade broke, went through Smirnov's mask and eye and several inches into his brain. He was brain-dead and on life support for four days.

[Dav3ey]

A fencing coach of mine once recounted the tale of a sabre fencer back in the day (maybe the 30's?) whose m.o. was to make a huge flailing fleche attack all the way down the piste eventually running past his opponent -- at which point he would flip of his mask and wait arrogantly for the judges to award his touch.

He got to the Olympics on this attitude ploy, where the judges were all well aware of just what he would try to pull. When he did this the first time, the judges awarded him nothing. Didn't see it, didn't call it.

After three times he was so enraged that when he got to the end of the piste, he tore off his old, heavy, leather-lined sabre mask -- which caught his ear and ripped it off.

Now this is the same coach who told me that he had seen a copy of Stephen Crane's _The Red Badge of Courage_ with a bullet hole through it from a civil war battle -- so there you go.

[veeco]

Just recently, 2 epee fencers on the national French team had an accident while training:

Hughes Obry was fencing Stephane Leroy, and Hughes' blade broke and went into Stephane's chest, perforating the lining of his lungs.

They are both OK, Stephane is (was?) at the hospital and will recover. But that's the kind of freak accident you would not want to hear...

Of course, these people were international level athletes, so they were wearing full FIE equipment at the time...

[pammie003]

Must pray that my mother never hears any of these stories...

[a517dogg]

a friend told me about this yes, but i saw stephane at the club a little while ago and he was fine. when did this happen?

[Boo Boo]

I ALMOST had a nasty accident last week whilst fencing foil.

I don't know how it happened, but I felt the tip of my opponent's electric foil scratch across my throat. It had snaked under my FIE bib, hadn't got caught by my jacket collar and managed to scratch acoss my bear throat.

No blood, no lasting pain (it did sting a little) and no mark, but it was rather worrying :-(

Boo

[Aoife]

I'm in pain reading most of these! Ouchie!

What a comforting page to read a mere 1 1/2 hours before fencing this afternoon

(and we only wear the 350N protection stuff, not the 800N... and I'm the only one whi wears a plastron *crosses fingers*)

[sallearmourer]

Believe this or not compare to cheerleading fencing is a relative safe sports. Fencing over all is a safer sports then most when it's come to injuries. I myself had taken a broken epee though my leg.


Tim

[Dav3ey]

Do we know if anyone has ever done a study of injury frequency for fencing? Or better yet, a comparative study of many sports including fencing?

Something that would estimate the occurances of (i) minor injuries (e.g., pulled hamstring), (ii) major injuries (e.g., torn ACL), and fatalities per person-hour of participation would be an interesting study.

In this day and age of universities' focus on health and safety. A good showing for fencing might be a good bargaining chip for funding.

[Boo Boo]

Have a look at:
http://www.exra.org/FencingChptr.htm
http://www.exra.org/FENCINGarticle.htm

Boo

[magma]

then what's the point of buying fie/it's supposed to be unshatterable, and the protective clothing is supposed to be more protective. but when you compare fencing to other sports, fencing still is probably less injurious. almost all college and high school games have time outs for injuries, and everyone claps for the guy who gets hauled off the field. i've only seen some sprained ankles or wrists, it has to be their fencing, or their coach.

[Boo Boo]

FIE blades are not unshatterable, they merely break more safely than non-FIE blades (which can break with several inches of a steel spike/shard sticking out...). FIE blades tend not to break bluntly (you can still cut or puncture someone with a broken FIE blade), the injury caused often depends upon what other conditions are involved (i.e. you can also puncture someone with a fork if you hit them hard enough... although I haven't actually tried it!).

One point of buying FIE blades is that they tend to last a lot longer than non-FIE blades.

Boo

[Aoife]

At http://www.kentfencing.org.uk/ I found this quote...

Fencing is often said to be safer than golf. Whether or not this is true, it is an extraordinarily safe sport considering its heritage and nature.

[Inquartata]

I know a coach who, in his days as a young fencer, had an epee break and go through his jacket deeply enough to collapse a lung.

He says that his coach walked over, stood over him as he lay on the floor, and said mildly "That wouldn't have happened if you had parried"...

[edew]

Originally posted by Dav3ey
If this is going to be an fencing injury urban legend thread, then here's one:

While I was in the Army, a friend of mine told me that he had heard of someone who, before the turn-down on the collar of the jacket, had a foil blade slide off his chest, go up under his bib, into his mask, UP HIS NOSE, and into his brain.

Of course, the subject purportedly survived! But alas, he had the unfortunate luck to have that part of his brain that recalled all names of produce (that's right -- lettuce, broccoli, carrots, &c.) destroyed, leaving him unable to name just about everything in the first aisle of the supermarket. Still knew it was edible, just couldn't tell you what it was called.

Guess that accident left him in some weird sort of vegetative state.

The thought of this gives me the chives, though. Lettuce go! I don't think people carrot for more of this. Too corny, I say. People will be stalking me from now on.