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Monday, 04 July 2005 15:13 |
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I have not often been as much fire and flame for my job as in that occasion. Or is it the story of how I got fired by my employer? Anyway, find out, how my job sets me on fire :-O .
We recently had a seminar with our company. It is one of those seminars, where all employees from SimCorp worldwide come together to do something interesting.
 I drop to the ground. This time we could influence our own experience by choosing 3 out of 50 different courses from a list. Many sounded very interesting. There were courses with psychological background, explorations of the technical universe, reports from travels (as far as the trip to planet Mars), etc. But the one that set me on fire was called "Stunts". I must say that this was a much different course, than what I initially expected. It was much better!  Under the fire extinguisher. Initially we learned a bit about the purpose and history of stunts. Then we got a little insight into the making of stunts in a movie. And finally we've got to make our own stunts.  The stunt succeeded. It was a short movie sequence, where a man (Allan) was tied up on the motor of a car. That car crashed in a fairly high speed through a burning, wooden wall. Then that man, standing in flames, got off the car, walked a couple of steps (that was me), and then finally fell to the ground - burning.  Allan is approaching the wall. The scene was quite simple. But the preparations were fun. We've got to build our petrol bombs around the wooden wall, which should detonate at the moment the car breaks through. And we've got the instructions how to protect yourself against fire. Of course fire brigade and ambulance were waiting ready to step in. But the goal was to avoid this to happen in the first place. While Allan was preparing the car stunt, I was wrapping myself into the fire suit. The stunt guys poured petrol over me, and ignited the fire. After hitting the ground, the fire was extinguished.  Breaking throught the wall. I must say, that was a pretty special experience! The petrol burns at around 700 degrees Celsius, and the fire takes all oxygen. While standing there in flames, you can't see much, and you can't breathe much. You can only feel the heat slowly penetrating the suit.  But as expected: All went fine... You just hope that the fire can be extinguished, and the suit can be taken off, before the heat reaches the skin. The sudden understanding of the meaning of the word "trust" dawns you!
Of course it was all well planned, and it all went fine. And I've got my little portion of adrenaline :-)
See you soon in the cinema!
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Last Updated on Monday, 04 July 2005 16:29 |