Safety, Safety, Safety: Please Watch The Video

[Legion Para]

This tragic event should never have happened. Many take reenacting, living history events and parades for granted.

 

http://kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_11970.shtml

[rclay49]

that's terrible. I've been civil war reenacting for 12 yrs. I've done many battles, living histories, and parades. I've seen my fair share of crazy accidents from guns exploding to tents catching fire but nothing like that. it's one of those freak accidents that you really cannot prepare for. hopefully the kids will be ok.

[willysmb44]

Can't get the vido link to open. Can anyone give a reader's digest version of what happened?

I started CW re-enacting at the age of about 6, did that until my 30s. We did artillery (Dad built his own M1841 6 pdr), and Dad was often tapped to be the safety inspector for the other crews at most events we went to as he developed a rep early on for operating far safer than other crews. Heck, we had counter battery fire at Natural Bridge, Florida. A parrott rifle fired a newspaper wad twice the size of my first right at us, drilling itself into the ground about 20 feet from where Dad was standing (he was in the # 1 position at the muzzle at the time). I saw several premature ignitions over the years, too. No hands lost, thank God. There was a bad artillery incident during the centenial where several people got badly hurt, though.

Plenty of troops ran right on front of the muzzle of our gun at events just as we were gonna let fly. Sure, no lead in there, but it'd off you just the same from the distance a few of them passed by at.

In 1998, I saw the ramrod going downrange at the Gettysburg event, a collective gasp was heard by all around me.

I'm truly surprised I never saw anyone get killed in all that time. Frankly, the hobby is way overdue for a horrific incident of some kind, what with all the close calls I saw in all those years...

[Bob Hudson]

"Three kids were sent to the hospital after an explosion occurred during a parade in Orem Saturday.

Witnesses who saw the explosion told 2News that two of the three children appeared to be engulfed in flames.

Three children participating in the Orem Summerfest Parade were injured during an incident at the beginning of the parade, the city's Department of Public Safety said in a release.

These children were part of a Civil War reenactment group.

During the reenactment, a cannon was fired and one of the sparks landed in a pouch that contained additional charges for the cannon. The pouch blew up, injuring all three children involved in the reenactment, the press release said.

All three children were in stable condition as they were taken by ambulance to a local hospital.

2News has since learned that four kids were hurt in the in the accident. The explosion remains under investigation."

[Brig]

Why was there an open pouch in the vicinity of the cannon? If that happened in the military, very important people would be pounding sand back into the civilian sector

[suwanneetrader]

I was a CW re enactor 1960 - 64. During that time, due to some close calls, we could not carry ramrods for the muskets as in the heat of battle some forgot to remove them from the barrel after packing the blank powder charge and the ramrod became a missile fired at the other side. One had to set the blank cartridge by bouncing the musket butt against the ground. This was a little hard on the original CW muskets (which many of us used as in the 1950's they were cheaper that a first class reproduction) my how things have changed. Richard

[willysmb44]

Wow. When we were still doing events (Dad's looking 80 years old dead in the eye, hasn't fire that gun in years), we only took one cartirdge to the muzzle at a time, in a gunner's leather stachel. No way could a sprak get in there.

Man, that story reads like something Willie Coyote would do!

Richard, we never saw rifle ramrods in the events in the Deep south either, for the same reason you saw. But I've seen events in the Northeast where everyone is carrying one.

[gunbunnyB/3/75FA]

as a former FA gunner my q? is why the he48 was that pouch open, and so close to the gun, these "gunners" need to be retrained as infantry and that tube sold to someone who knows what to do with it

[willysmb44]

They also need to not have kids handling the rounds. I grew up crewing my Dad's M1841 6 pdr field gun but I never got to even touch the gun or the ammo until I was old enough to do so, way older than these kids were!