Over the weekend, nine members of a Ringing Bros. circus troupe and two other people were injured during the Medeiros Hair-Hang Act. Horrified spectators watched as the circus members plummeted between 25 and 35 feet to the ground during Sunday's May 4 show, CNN reports.
According to officials, the incident was caused by a malfunctioning clamp but Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare didn't say what caused the clamp to snap. The accident sent eight female performers, another on-the-ground performer and two other people to the hospital. Officials said many of the people hospitalized suffered broken bones and two of them are in critical condition.
"We have never had an accident like this with this number of performers injured," Ringling Bros. spokesman Steven Payne said. "It really is a testament to, you know, their physical fitness and skills, that the injuries were not more severe than they were."
During the show, the eight performers were all dangling above the ground by their hair. One spectator, Chelie Barrie, told WPRI that she "screamed" when she saw the performers falling towards the floor.
"You know, sometimes you're surprised and it's part of the show, but this clearly wasn't," she said.
According to reports, the lights were left off so children could not see what happened and the curtain was quickly lowered. The circus cancelled performances for Monday and the accident is currently being investigated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Elaine Alcorn, a Ringling Bros. performer who was not involved in Sunday's show, said that there is always the risk that something could go wrong during a performance.
"There can always be mistakes, there can always be failures in the rigging," Alcorn told CNN. "They don't call it death defying for nothing. As a circus performer it is our job to do the impossible, to stare death in the face and conquer it. We don't just do it for entertainment. We do it to inspire people, to inspire them to conquer their own fears or overcome their own obstacles."
According to CNN, Rhode Island Hospital has confirmed the names of the eight ladies injured in the accident as: Viktoriya Medeiros, Widny Neves, Samantha Pitard, Viktorila Liakhova, Dayana Costa, Julissa Segrera, Stefany Vebves and Svitlana Balanicheva.
