We went back to our surveillance agent and he kindly supplied us with the following.
The catwalk was simple by design: two 1 X 6 planks laid side by side, wedged between long pieces of angle-iron with six-foot sections of all-thread placed on both sides about every 20 linear feet and flanked on both sides by suspension wires that, at their highest point, were about four feet above the catwalk. (Imagine a mini Golden Gate Bridge -- during an earthquake.) This caused the walk to creak and groan in certain areas and even swing like a rope bridge in others.
Another idiosyncrasy of the walk was that, being in older casinos, asbestos insulation had been sprayed on everything, including water pipes, heating and ventilation duct work, etc. We used to say, "If the walk doesn’t kill you, the asbestos sure will."
Lighting was rare. If there was any at all, it didn't work. So observers usually carried a flashlight with them.
Numerous ceiling tiles were actually screens. Though we could hear almost every word spoken in the pit, there were two unintended consequences. First, the heat rose; if the temperature was 70 degrees in the pit, it was about 95 on the walk. Second, everyone in the casino smoked back then, and the smoke rose. Needless to say, working conditions were brutal.
Anyone who's been in the surveillance business for a week or more will tell you stories of observers falling to their deaths from the catwalk due to a misstep or an accident. I know of only one story, and though I didn't see it personally, I did assess the damage it caused to the catwalk and ceiling, and heard all the details from about a dozen different witnesses, all through the next day when the incident was the talk of the joint.
It was the winter of 1988, a cold, dark, and snowy night. Our ill-fated surveillance agent, "John," was sentenced to the catwalk "hole" because he showed up late for work due to the snowy road conditions; this was how the surveillance supervisor punished him for being late. John was a local cop, moonlighting at one of the casinos, and he'd just gotten off of an eight-hour shift. He was tired and sleepy, but he gladly accepted his shift in the "hole." Actually, he was glad to escape the wrath of the supervisor.
John's first mistake? He didn't grab a cup o' mud before climbing into the belly of the beast. His second mistake: Instead of standing or kneeling on the catwalk, John smuggled in an old kitchen-type high-back chair and placed it on a little five-by-five "turnout" where, if you played with it awhile, you could get the chair to lean back, then kick your feet up on the suspension wire and relax. John took the relaxing a step too far and fell asleep.
Sometime into his nap, his feet fell from their perch on the wire, causing the chair to rock forward, which catapulted John forward. He slid between the wire and the catwalk's planks head first, then did a 180 as he went through the ceiling head first, falling through several of the mirrored ceiling tiles and crashing down, amidst a snowstorm of asbestos insulation and shards of glass galore, onto a loaded crap table.
Players, dealers, chips, and dice scattered everywhere, along with glass and asbestos, scattered everywhere. As a joke, a dealer took two silver-dollar tokens and placed them over John’s eyes. Needless to say, while they waited for the ambulance, the pit boss fired John on the spot. After the firemen bandaged him up, he was sent home, for good. I’m not sure what happened to him since or where he is today.
As for the players, they were all comped a nice dinner and another table was opened for them and their wagers were settled one by one via the honor system. The casino had no other choice, since it was in the wrong, and there was only one "long shot" camera view, which couldn't possibly be used to settle the bets.
