On March 25th in Alabama, a true tragedy took place. A digital sign installed in an airport came crashing down on a family. It killed a 10-year-old boy and injured his mother and two brothers. You can read about the accident on rAVe’s site here.

Before I go any further, I wanted to make clear that there are still a lot of unknowns. I don’t intend this article to point fingers or place blame. I do think there is an appropriate time and place for that, but I don’t have enough information. Rather, I hope we take a moment to reflect on this incident and recognize that sometimes what we do can be the difference between life and death.

On several of the mail lists that I participate, we get the occasional ridiculous picture of a horrible AV install. We all make jokes about it, which in many cases is appropriate.  Have you seen the picture of a satellite dish attached to a shopping cart? That deserves a good laugh. Then, every now and again the picture will come across that will make you shiver. These are the images of projectors secured with duct tape or sitting in a milk crate hanging from rachet straps. Or this picture, of a LCD panel hanging on by, I don’t know what, clear tape?

Hopefully, a tragedy like this can remind us that not only should we not laugh at these dangerous installs, but we should also condemn them. For the readership of this particular newsletter, think about who is sitting under that projector, screen or speaker — probably a child, ranging in age from 6 to 21. That’s someone who implicitly trusts that that 10-pound projector will not fall from 15 feet onto them. We need to respect that trust.

We did a project a few years ago where we installed nine classrooms, each one with a suspended ceiling. We used a product we love, the Extron PCM 240. The mounts were handed off to the general contractor, who had a carpenter install them. Every system comes with turnbuckles and 60 feet of safety wire. The intention of this, of course, is to take the main weight off the suspended grid, and place it on firm support structures above. Obviously, it also ensures the system will not fall if some part of the ceiling fails. In walking through the rooms after, we found all the turnbuckles and wire in boxes on the floor. They had not used the safety equipment. Obviously, we made them go back and put in these safety features.

Today, I question what would have happened if the equipment had been thrown away, rather than left in the room? Would we have thought to look above the tile and ensure the wires were connected to solid structure? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I hope that going forward the memory of what happened here forces us to check on such things. Even if it is “someone else’s job,” when it comes to safety why not take a moment to do that double check?

Incidents like this give a clear logic for standards and accreditations. I spoke with a fellow technology manager, Greg Brown, who holds both the CTS-I and the CTS-D certifications. Greg told me that the CTS-I exam covers some of the safety issues an installer needs to know, like safe weight loads. Greg also pointed out that “we’ve lost an appreciation for the due diligence our work requires living in a world of 10-pound projectors. Back when we regularly hung 200-pound, three-gun CRT projectors above audiences, it was pretty obvious a careless install could kill someone.” Greg makes a terrific point, and I would go further to say that this does not just cover integrators and installers, but it also includes (maybe even more so) those of us in education who do our own installs.

Another example from my personal experience is with installing a projector lift in our field house.  I knew that I did not have the engineering knowledge to properly spec out how the lift should be installed and secured. I turned to the engineers in our Facility Services group. They also felt unsure of their expertise in this matter. They turned to a local engineering firm, and a local sheet fabricator to come up with a system to secure the lift to the steel beams in the field house. The experience was slower and more expensive, but we know that the lift is secure and will not fall onto people. It also highlights Greg’s point: We knew that we needed to be sure with a 400-pound contraption that it was safe, so we took the extra steps. A small speaker or projector may not seem as dangerous, but I am not volunteering to stand under a falling one.

So, do you have any lingering safety concerns about installed equipment? Is there that one screen hanging from just sheetrock? Is there a projector secured only to a suspended ceiling?  If so, take a moment now and make plans to fix it. You may save a life without even knowing.

Scott Tiner, CTS, has worked in the AV/IT field in public K-12, private K-12 and higher education institutions. With a BS in Secondary Education from the Boston University School of Education, he has a deep interest in the use of various types of technology in the classroom. Currently, as the assistant director of user services: digital media, classroom technology & event support at Bates College, Scott designs learning spaces, oversees event support and staging and manges all video streaming on campus. Scott also oversees the Digital Media Center. The Digital Media Center provides support and instruction on all video and audio editing on campus.??

Scott is very active in the field, having presented at both regional and national conferences. In 2011, he was appointed as chair of the Technology Managers Council of InfoComm. Scott can be contacted via LinkedIn, on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stiner or via email at stiner08@gmail.com