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Injured while covering a game

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by littlehurt98, Jan 14, 2009.

  1. smithsonryan

    smithsonryan New Member

    i think anyone who had worked in nascar got hurt at one point or another. my fave story was marty smith's, who saw a photog get hit full-force with a lugnut during a pit stop. right to the forehead.

    jeff burton ran over my foot at sonoma, and mark martin's car skirt nearly severed my Achilles at Texas once.

    The lugnut was worse. Those things are heavy. Still surprised a NASCAR cameraman hasn't shared some stories.
     
  2. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    The first week of my career as a freelance h.s. football videographer, I nealry got plowed on a sweep to the sideline. Made for some cool footage on the 10:00 news, but I didn't want to be in that situation again.

    The second and final week of my career as a freelance h.s. football videographer, I was in position to film the opening kickoff when the return man (who later wound up at Alabama after junior college) made a break for my sideline. I turned to run, but I turned a second too late. Run over. Everybody asked if I was OK, and I told them I thought so. My leg hurt too much to stand on, so I tried to find my partner in the press box. Had to walk out of the stadium to the back side of the bleachers, climb the stairs, and then found out he wasn't there. (He had seen the hit and went looking for me.) We had 2-3 other games to shoot, so I convinced him to shoot those while I waited in the car, then run tape back to the station. I crashed on his couch and tried to sleep, which was near impossible with the pain.

    Two days later, I finally got talked into going to the doc in the box. It turned out I was not OK.

    http://orthopedics.about.com/od/brokenbones/a/tibia_2.htm

    The hit happened the Friday before Labor Day. The rehab was done around Easter.
     
  3. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    I took a tackle right to the gut (and an indirect glance to the package) while shooting a daytime football game. The picture I got right before getting hit was one of the best I've ever taken. Still not worth it, though.
     
  4. fossywriter8

    fossywriter8 Well-Known Member

    In the early '90s I was taking pics at a high school football game and a reporter/photographer from a rival paper was also there. While I stood, she kneeled along the sideline, with both knees down. Sure enough, a sweep came our way and she got lit up like a Christmas tree. Popped back up, though I never saw her put both knees down on the ground again.
     
  5. FishHack76

    FishHack76 Active Member

    I have a couple of stories:
    I was at one football game when there was a commotion around the 40- or 50-yard line. The drive was moving the other way, and I was keeping stats so I kept paying attention to the field. When the drive ended, I looked over, and it's our 60-year-old photo stringer who has broken his leg and has a bloodied head. I felt so bad, but luckily, he was being attended to by a couple of trainers. Obviously, I didn't go to medical school.
    At another football game, there was a camera guy (for some cable access station that would show everything on tape delay) on his knees fixing his stuff with his back to the field, which is never a good idea. There's a long pass play, and the guy just gets wiped out by the receiver and the defensive back. I run over and the guy is OUT COLD with a trickle of blood on the back of his head. I shook him gently a couple of times and he regained consciousness.
    That was scary.
     
  6. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Shoot, I was wiped out in a football game once (guy was 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, not hurt) and had a near-miss because I was staffing a game days after a major hurricane. Missed me and got a photog who had to slide along the mud to protect the video camera.

    Also barehanded a ball in a softball game once because I was also shooting the game for the paper. You would have thought those folks thought all sports media was terribly uncoordinated or something.
     
  7. times38

    times38 Member

    was covering a wrestling meet and walking the area between the bleachers and mats. I was watching the mats to see where to go take a picture, and while I was doing that some kid was stretching and waiving his arm around and he proceeded to punch me right in the nose.

    didn't break anything, but it knocked me loopy for a good 15 minutes.
     
  8. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    I've found it's damn hard to do anything remotely athletic when you have a camera around your neck.
     
  9. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I've gotten tagged by baseball at small-school games more times than I can count. Once I was talking to the coach and one accurate laser shot from short to first somehow missed first and landed a half-inch from the wedding tackle.
     
  10. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    A cheerleader nearly hit me in the face last night with a t-shirt she was trying to throw into the stands at a college bball game. She was standing off to my right a bit and I was looking to my left, talking to another reporter. All of sudden, I caught a white flash out of the corner of my eye and instinctively moved my head, just in time to avoid the worst throw in history. I felt like I was at the podium for a Bush presser.

    I have to admit, I was impressed with my own reflexes, considering I barely saw the thing before it whizzed past my dome.
     
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