LR - Loch Ruadh Company, Name of

[Rhonda New]

Should anyone volunteer to test Bjorns trebuchet like this, we
might come up with a few more suggestions for a company name....

/Ly Elizabeth

-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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