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[Iapetus]

My new fortress is suffering a spate of accidents, resulting in one death, one spinal injury, plus several non-serious incidents.

I only noticed something was happening when I spotter a child crawling around with a spinal injury, and checked the reports and saw the cause:

The (chicory) strikes The Dwarven Baby in the lower body, bruising the muscle and tearing apart the lower spine's nervous tissue!
The Dwarven Child's left foot takes the full force of the impact, bruising the muscle through the x(sheep wool shoe)x!
The Dwarven Child is no longer stunned.

The fatality was similar:
The (pendant amaranth beer Barrel (avocado wood) (#47)) strikes The Stonecrafter in the neck and the injured part is crushed!
An artery has been opened by the attack!

Spoiler: Memorial (click to show/hide)

This is a superior quality granite memorial to Catten Konoduthal.  The slab reads "In memory of Catten Konoduthal / Born 236 / Suffocated, slain by with a avocado wood barrel in the year 252 / Loving mother and wife".
(Yes, "slain by with" is what it says, not an error on my part).

All the other lesser injuries and incidents are similar (someone struck by seeds, stone blocks, etc) and all occur on a ramp with a hatch cover above it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's a sort of "spiral staircase", that looks like this in plan view:

Code: [Select]

#####
#^++#
#^++#
##vv#
#####

# = wall
^ = up ramp
v = down ramp
+ = floor
The layout is rotated 90 degrees on each level, and the down ramps have hatch covers over them.

Can anyone explain what is going on, and why this seemingly benign bit of architecture is so dangerous?

[vjmdhzgr]

I've never seen it myself, but I've heard that putting hatches over ramps basically causes everybdoy in your fortress to kill themselves falling down it, so that's the problem.

[Detros]

See DFwiki page about hatches: "A dwarf standing on a floor hatch over stairs will not start falling if the hatch is opened. A dwarf standing on a floor hatch above a ramp or open space will start falling if the hatch is opened."

It is also usually bad idea to have a storage area over hatch. Once that hatch is opened items piled on it or units standing on it will fall down ... on the unit opening it from below. Though, as is standard in DF, everything can be weaponized.

[Iapetus]

Ah, thanks.

Hatches removed.

Now I just need to find a way to deal with the crippled stressed haggard tantruming 2yo that's  crawling about the fortress viciously attacking people.

[Iamblichos]

Children of the Corn.  Standard for Dwarf Fortress, nothing to see here.  Move along.