The accident happened at the Zippos Christmas Circus Show at 6pm, during a performance of Cirque Beserk at the popular event in London's Hyde Park.
Staff rushed to help the artist, mother-of-one Jackie Armstrong, 35, and the tent was quickly cleared of audience members.
13 comments:
Oh geez. If I had a child and brought them to that show I don’t know what I would do, the article said that “she bounced” after she hit the ground that made me uneasy. I wonder what made her harness slip (someone said she didn’t have a harness at all). I am a little confused about how far she fell (it said 30ft and then in said 12ft). This is a very dangerous job and the performers are aware of that. Unlike a few other articles I have read about accidents on film sets, there seems to be no fault of a producer or supervisor, the performer knew the risks. I hope that she is ok and it will be interesting to see if she continues to perform if she is able to recover fully. Haha Zippos gave the audience members tickets to the next show, I would not want to go see it (even knowing that something like that is probably not going to happen twice in the same day)
It is always a shame to hear about accidents like this happening in our industry. It seems like the team handled it well and were very prepared for these things to happen. It really is necessary to always be prepared for accidents like this to happen when there are such dangerous stunts being performed on stage in front of people. It is unfortunate that so many people had to see what happened, and I hope the performer is okay after all of this. It is weird to me that this article almost exclusively refers to the acrobat as “a mother of one” like that is her most notable characteristic. They mention other notable things about her like the fact that she has a degree in theatre studies, but they continually circle back to her having a child. I am trying to figure out why they would have focused on this, but I really do not see any way it is that relevant to this story...
Oh, wow. That was... crazy. It makes me so sad to hear about things like this happening. I mean, it is an inherently dangerous job, and the performer knows the risks, but the thought of accidents like this happening even with performers as experienced as her... it's definitely something I try not to think about on the regular. I am very happy and impressed by the quick response from the paramedics and the care she received at the hospital; I am so glad she successfully underwent her surgery and is back on her feet. I find it admirable that fear has not stopped her from doing what she loves.
I think the article was weirdly written. It kept saying the same information over and over again to the point that it confused me and I thought my computer was glitching out and taking me back to the top every time I scrolled down (which it has been known to do in the past). I also think about what it was like to be in the audience for that. Ahhh, how traumatizing! I would never want to go back after that, free ticket or not.
This really saddens me. Aerialist are truly some of the strongest and bravest people out there. Not only do they do incredible things with their bodies, but they do it in the air and many times they are not harnessed. It takes a whole lot of guts to go up there and perform night after night, day after day, knowing very well that with every performance you are risking your life. I'm sure it takes true passion and love for your art to be able to do this so I tip my hat off to every single one of them. This is why it makes it so sad when accidents occur. Yes, the chances of them happening are extremely high, but it so very unfortunate. Just hearing that she was wailing and that even the audience left screaming and crying is a lot to stomach. I read another article to see how she is doing and apparently she fractured her spine but underwent surgery and is on her way to recovery. I know that it is going to be a long and hard road, but I hope that she is able bounce back pretty strongly. I am so grateful to hear that she is not paralyzed or anything of that sort. Hopefully her strength extends outside of her craft and she's able to keep on going, regardless of what has happened to her. It is said that she said that she didn't fear anything, not even after having a child. Hopefully this accident hasn't changed her fearless spirit.
Aerial arts are dangerous. Even a 12 ft fall can kill a person. The article is also somewhat misleading. It talks about a harness, but she was not in a harness, she was performing with straps. A harness is an item that helps prevent a fall. Aerialists don’t often use harnesses as they would restrict movement, something that the aerialist needs to have full control of. This is an accident. It does happen, though I am sure more frequently (and more seriously) than usually gets reported. I am not sure that I trust the reports coming from company management as they are more concerned with protecting their show and image. The article focused continuously on the family, about who her husband was, the fact that they have a child together that often comes to work. I understand the desire for the journalist to want to write about stuff like that, but it seems that it was the main focus not on the fall or what may have went wrong. Journalists have to write to sell papers so their focus is not always going to be on the important parts of the story. I hope she makes a speedy recovery and is back to work when she is able. Working in performer driven companies like these means that she may not have the finances in place to be able to retire and would have to continue to work to support her family. That is an ever greater tragedy.
This is incredibly anxiety inducing and probably why I could never work somewhere like this. This definitely is a terrifying thought as a manager to have whenever you have performers or technicians performing dangerous stunts or tasks. It is something that is always on my mind while I am in rehearsal.
I do have to applaud the team as a whole, though. They clearly must have practiced their emergency procedure plans multiple times. The article mentioned that a group of staff responded after she did not get up right away. They also managed to clear the entire house out as well in what seemed like no time at all. This is no easy thing to do, and I am glad they handled the situation as well as they did.
I hope for her speedy recovery. I also hope she is still able to perform. I can’t imagine the heartbreak she may feel if her injury makes it impossible for her to perform certain stunts.
This story is absolutely terrifying. It was only a few years ago when a man plummeted to his death during a music festival performance, so hearing it happen again to another performer makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s good to hear that the woman is still alive, but the fear she must have felt must have been insane. I can only imagine what it must have been to be audience member that night. While this was a slip up on the performer, hopefully this incident will encourage the circus show she is a part of to regulate their safety precautions more carefully in order to avoid another accident. Seeing that her child could have been motherless just from a simple slip up is absolutely heartbreaking to see and I am glad to see she was able to survive in the end. Hopefully she will recover soon and return to her family and perform as normal.
unfortunately, I read about incidents like this more than I like to. I remember when the performer from Cirque du Soleil died from fallng, much like this one, in front of her husband and two children. It is truly chilling to think about. I don't know if there is anything more Arial performance groups can really do to make acts safer while still maintaining the magic and talent brought to these kinds of performances. Providing more gear/safety equipment would definitely,hopefully, reduce the risk of tragic incidents like this from happening as often, yet it would take away from showcasing the talent and gravity-defying stunts these spectacular acrobats are capable of. I am glad to know she survived and will be alright. I wonder what the circus industry is doing about incidents like this one.I also wonder how audience members felt that evening, it must have been very traumatic to see.
I was very, very relieved to make it to the end of the article and find out that the performer will recover. I understand that the article was updated as they received more information, but they could have put the updates at the top. In any case, it is always hard to read about an incident that occurred on a routine show or task. In this particular episode, the performer was highly trained and experienced, and somewhere there was an error (or a piece of faulty gear, which I count as an error since it should have been caught in inspections) that could have caused her death. It just goes to show that, no matter how careful we are, there is always a risk, and we should act accordingly. Whenever we brush off safety regulations for the sake of convenience, we are increasing this risk, and it is never worth it.
I think everyone hates to hear about incidents like this happening. I know it’s always in the back of my mind when watching performances like this and just because they are professionals who do this everyday doesn’t mean that accidents like this don’t happen. Not to mention the distress caused to the audience watching the performer when something like this does go wrong. It serves as a good reminder to us all to keep safety as the utmost importance to us even when we are doing activities that are well within are capabilities and normal routine because the slightest mis-step could lead to a dangerous and potentially life threatening situation for ourselves or others. It is interesting to hear from a past interview about the performers perspective on her job and the danger it entails and how un-phased she was by it even though she recognized the danger in it. Though the article detailing her injury left a lot of questions it did say that she was expected to make a full recovery which I know is a relief to hear and I am sure is a relief to her circus family as well. She seemed to be very passionate about her family in the circus and I’m sure she got a lot of support from everyone there to help her start her road to recovery.
I think a lot of the time, as much as we try to take safety seriously, we really don't realize how bad things can go even with the most well trained personnel. As many will say, people that are new to something can actually be safer than those who have done it before, since they aren't taking for granted the risks involved. I am glad to hear that, at the moment, things are looking well for Jackie, but the emotional damage to her and all those who saw it has unfortunately already been done. I cannot imagine going back to a circus and seeing the acrobats perform if I had seen one fall during a routine. Even in a theatrical setting, there are many things that we do that can be disastrous if it goes awry. Having just finished working on the automation for "Or," I really started to think about how badly something as simple as a few walls moving could go. It is instances like this that are a harsh reminder that we cannot fall into habits in our business since it is constantly pushing and pushing, but again I am glad to hear that the performer is expected to recover.
This was a very stressful article to read. Disaster on this scale is something you never want to experience in everyday life, and especially not in your professional career. Thank goodness the performer is alright, but incidents like this can be incredibly dangerous. My dad is a paramedic/EMT and has been for almost 40 years now, and he has been on multiple calls for incidents from circus performers. It is such a strenuous and outright dangerous career that doesn't seem to always have as many union protection/safety checks as it should. Granted, I know absolutely nothing about circus unions and how they function, but when performers are actually putting their lives on their line every single night, for the sake of a performance, I would hope there would be a large group of people looking out for them. From an audience perspective, I am not sure what I would do if I witnessed something so terrifying, especially if I had children with me.
Articles make me wonder if literally anyone is out there testing new safety equipment for aerialists. I know that these kinds of safety developments take time and have to go through rigorous testing and experiments, but I feel like, with the amount of aerialist deaths I hear about in a month, there should be a dialogue between aerialists and companies that create this safety equipment about where the holes in the system are. I fully understand that there will always be risk here. The performer needs control over a range of movement that a super restrictive system would probably cause more damage than not, but there has to be something. The physical demands of a career like this mean that sometimes the performers will not be at their best. Sometimes when you push your muscles and body so hard, it fails you. It is exciting to push those boundaries, but sometimes you hit a limit in an unexpected moment, and terrifying things happen. It saddens me to hear about the fear her husband and child felt, but I am glad she has a support system through her recovery.
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