| First responders work at the center ring after a platform collapsed during an aerial hair-hanging stunt at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Sunday, May 4, 2014, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Providence Journal, Bob Breidenbach) |
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A public safety official in Rhode Island says investigators looking into what
happened to send eight circus acrobats plummeting to the ground during a performance have found that a
clamp snapped.
Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare told WPRO-AM on Monday that the clamp that held the
performers to the rafters failed.
He says federal workplace safety investigators are focusing on why it failed.
Several people on the ground were also injured when the performers fell 25 to 40 feet to the ground
during a Sunday performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Three of the acrobats remain in critical condition Monday morning.
A spokesman for the circus’s parent company says none of the injuries appear to be life-threatening.
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