ES - RE: [Chirurgeons] Fw: FW: Trebuchet, or "Them Crazy Brits"!

[Richard Threlkeld]

Thought you might enjoy this.
Caelin 

-----Original Message-----
From: Philippa Alderton [mailto:phlip at morganco.net]
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2000 10:16 AM
To: Chirurgeon; Aethelmark List; Iron Rose; Middlebridge
Subject: [Chirurgeons] Fw: FW: Trebuchet, or "Them Crazy Brits"!


Thought you folks might enjoy this ;-) Another candidate for the Darwin
Awards?


Phlip

Nolo disputare, volo somniare et contendere, et iterum somniare.

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

"All things are poisons.  It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a
poison and a remedy." -Paracelsus

"Oats -- a grain which in England sustains the horses, and in
Scotland, the men." -- Johnson

"It was pleasant to me to find that 'oats,' the 'food of horses,' were
so much used as the food of the people in Johnson's own town." --
Boswell

"And where will you find such horses, and such men?" -- Anonymous

-----Original Message-----
From: Gunn, Thomas V <thomas.v.gunn at lmco.com>
To: 'sca-east at indra.com' <sca-east at indra.com>; 'BARONY at hern.stonemarche.org'
<BARONY at hern.stonemarche.org>
Date: Friday, June 02, 2000 9:31 AM
Subject: EK: FW: Trebuchet, or "Them Crazy Brits"!


-Poster: "Gunn, Thomas V" <thomas.v.gunn at lmco.com>


> Michael Paterson www.telegraph.co.uk <http://www.telegraph.co.uk>, issue
> 183
>
>  A woman taking part in safety trials of a giant catapult smashed her
> pelvis after being flung at 50mph from the medieval-style machine and
> bouncing out of the landing net.
>
> Onlookers said that Stella Young, a member of the Dangerous Sports Club,
> hit the ground "like a sack of potatoes" and could have died if she had
> not landed on soft, muddy earth after overshooting the buffer zone of
> tyres designed to break the 15ft fall from the net.
>
> Miss Young, 44, had put on body armour, a helmet and a Coldstream Guard's
> coat to be fired from the catapult 70ft into the air and 100ft across a
> field in Stogursey, Somerset, on Sunday afternoon.
>
> The catapult, a wooden contraption based on trebuchets used in the Middle
> Ages to hurl rocks over castle walls during sieges, had been tested over
> many months by her boyfriend, Richard Wicks, and the club's secretary,
> David Aitkenhead.  They had both previously been fired from it and had
> also tested it with dummies weighing the same as Miss Young.
>
> She had been visibly shaking as she prepared for the four-second flight,
> which her boyfriend had persuaded her to make.  She then landed slightly
> too close to the edge of the 44ft by 35ft net, hitting a spot where it had
> greater recoil.  This made her fly clear of the tyres and land on the
> ground.  Miss Young, a Citizen's Advice Bureau manager, was watched by 15
> people, including a television crew.
>
> Mr Wicks, 29, whom she met while bungee jumping, said yesterday: "I went
> through so many emotions in a few seconds.  When Stella landed on the net,
> people cheered.  Then everyone gasped when she bounced clear and hit the
> ground like a sack of spuds.
>
> "I rushed over, fearing she might be dead or have a crippling spinal
> injury.  Fortunately it was clear more or less immediately that she could
> move.  But she was groaning and was in a lot of pain."
>
> Paramedics arrived within minutes, and Miss Young was taken to Musgrove
> Hospital, Taunton.  She was still under observation yesterday but will
> suffer no permanent damage and could be back at work in a fortnight.
> Mr Wicks, a scrap metal dealer, was yesterday back tinkering with the
> catapult.
>
> He and Mr Aitkenhead, who runs a car scrapyard, have spent ?3,000
> developing the machine over the past two years and plan to offer goes on
> it to the paying public.
>
> Mr Wicks said: "Stella is fine, but she said she won't have another go on
> the trebuchet.  I wish it had happened to me, not her.  I'm devastated by
> her accident, but we'll bounce back." His girlfriend has insisted that the
> trials should continue.
>
> Mr Aitkenhead, 41, who used to run a bungee-jumping business, said:
> "We are convinced the machine is absolutely safe.  "We had 50 trials on it
> before either of us used it.  Only three or four of the test dummies
> bounced out of the net and all of them landed in the emergency padding
> zone.  Stella is the only one who has not managed to land safely."
>
> The experience, captured on film by the German camera crew, may come back
> to haunt them.  Mr Wicks said: "It's inevitable that Stella's accident
> will end up on television.  I just hope it's not on You've Been Framed."
>
> The Dangerous Sports Club was launched in 1979.  Founder members had a
> memorable first month in which they jumped off the Clifton suspension
> bridge in Bristol with elastic ropes and on another occasion ate lunch,
> wearing morning coats, at the top of the Soufriere volcano on the
> Caribbean island of St Vincent.
>
> The club pioneered bungee jumping.  Members have taken part in stunts
> ranging from having dinner on top of a hot air balloon to crossing the
> Channel in a septic tank.
>
> There are currently six core members, of which Miss Young has been one for
> 10 years.  Her previous worst injury was a broken ankle, sustained while
> practising rock climbing at an indoor centre.
>
> Mr Wicks said: "People think we're addicted to danger, which is not quite
> true.  It's just an extension of the childhood urge of wanting to climb a
> tree.  We all really like the eccentricity aspect of it and that's why we
> dress up.  "I suspect that's why the Germans like filming us - we
> reinforce their ideas about the nutty English."
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