Horseplay Leads to Sickbay

It may have just been my second boat, but we had some unnatural fixation on taping things to the shaft. If you left something unguarded in the engine room, and someone else wanted to “stow it for sea” for you, chances are you’d find it securely affixed to the shaft with enough EB green to mummify a nub.

But all of that stopped for good after The IC Div Incident.

One fine fine Navy evening, IC div was back in shaft alley, troubleshooting one of their circuits and basically getting in everyone’s way. Somewhere around midrats they made the mistake of leaving their toolbag behind when they went up forward to eat. One of the mechanics found it, and, with an evil glint in his eye, set about rounding up every roll of tape in the engine room.

He and his brethren spent the next twenty minutes taping each and every tool in IC div’s bag, plus the bag itself, to the shaft. This was made easier by two things: One, they’d posted a watch near the tunnel, and two, we’d been going 2 knots to nowhere for the last few days. When they were done it truly shattered all records for number of items taped to the shaft at the same time. Those of us who were privileged to see it stood in awe.

We were just settling in to wait for the IC guys to return from chow when, for no apparent reason, the bell suddenly changed to ahead flank. As everyone scrambled around to answer it, a loud “clangggg” rang out from middle level. The tools were flying off the shaft in every direction, much like five pound bullets.

The mechanics frantically tried to get the rest of them untaped, while dodging the ones that had untaped themselves, as the shaft sped up. They managed to do it, but one of them ended up with a broken finger as a souvenir. Luckily, nothing (and no one) else got broken. Most everyone on board knew what really happened, but the command officially accepted the lame-ass excuse they came up with for the injury.

As doc always says, horseplay leads to sick bay.