PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — One of eight circus acrobats who plunged about 20 feet to the ground during a
hair-hanging act witnessed by thousands says she’ll perform the stunt again.
“For me, you gotta get back up and do it again,” Samantha Pitard told The Associated Press after being
released from a hospital Tuesday.
Pitard and seven other acrobats were performing an act described as a “human chandelier,” hanging from an
apparatus by their hair. They were injured during a Sunday performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum
& Bailey circus when a clip at the top of the chandelier-like apparatus snapped, dropping them
to the ground.
The other women are still hospitalized and Pitard said she plans to stay in Providence to support her
friends as they work to regain their health. Then she’d like to return to the circus.
“I’m hoping to join back up with the tour and show the world that I’m OK, and I’m hoping some of the
other girls will do the same,” she said.
Pitard, 23, a native of Champaign, Illinois, said she’s the only one of the troupe who can walk on her
own. The others need assistance or haven’t tried to walk because they’re undergoing operations. But she
said the others are expected to fully recover and are in good spirits after receiving an outpouring of
support, including get-well cards from children who witnessed the accident. About 3,900 people were in
the audience.
“Every single one of us in the troupe, every single circus performer, knows that they are risking their
lives every time they go out there to perform or practice,” she said. “We hope it doesn’t happen, but we
know that we are taking that risk, and we love it enough to take that risk every day to make people
happy.”
Pitard said it had been a normal performance Sunday. The curtain dropped to reveal the eight women
suspended in the air, but something went wrong when they did their third leg position.
“We heard a huge crack, huge noise, and then we were just plummeting to the ground,” she said. “It was
very fast. I remember everything.”
The 350-pound chandelier landed on them. Pitard said rescue crews got to them quickly to free them from
the apparatus, then gave them medical attention.
“I was sitting up, and once I caught my breath, I was looking at all the girls,” she said. “I wanted to
know that everybody was OK. I saw my troupe leader (Viktoriya Medeiros), she was right next to me, and I
heard her say that she couldn’t feel her legs.”
The paramedics instructed her to lie down.
Pitard described her injuries, including fractures on her spine, a cut on her head that required three
stitches and a badly bitten tongue, as minor.
Local investigators are turning over the broken clip and other material to federal workplace safety
authorities. Fire investigator Paul Doughty said they have narrowed down the cause of the broken clip to
two possibilities: a manufacturing defect or improper use.
The circus inspected its equipment Monday night when it loaded up in Providence and planned another
inspection when it unloaded in Hartford, Connecticut, where it performs next, said Stephen Payne, a
spokesman for Feld Entertainment, Ringling’s parent company. The hair act won’t be performed there, the
company said.
Pitard said she became interested in being in the circus as a child during a camp that offered a circus
program.
She later attended the New England Center for Circus Arts and learned aerial acrobat skills. She joined
Ringling Bros. as a clown in November 2012 and later was invited to join the highly specialized
hair-hanging act.
“You have to have the right hair and the right weight and the right muscle,” she said.
She trained for months to develop the act being performed Sunday, which has the acrobats doing spins and
other moves while hanging from their hair. Her favorite part is holding two other performers up with her
hair.
“It’s an amazing feeling to know I’m holding two girls, two grown women, by my hair,” she said. “There’s
just something very, very cool about it.”
She said the way they’re hooked into the apparatus is so secure they don’t even practice with a net and
she doesn’t believe a net would have lessened their injuries because the apparatus still would have
fallen on them.