Video Shows Circus Performers Falling 30 Feet as Stunt Fails

Recently released video captured the moment when members of the famous “Flying Wallendas” circus family fell some 30 feet to the ground after an accident during rehearsal.

The video, released by the Sarasota Sheriff’s Department in Florida, shows the moment on February 8, 2017, when several performers fell while practicing the family’s signature aerial pyramid act.

Five people were hospitalized, but only one suffered serious injuries.

Family leader Nik Wallenda released a video on Facebook addressing the incident shortly after the accident video was released.

Wallenda said he has replayed the incident over and over in his head. He was so affected by the memory that he nearly gave up performing—this, from a man who has walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls.

“Having to relive this today has not been fun at all, but I’m also very happy to report that my family, my friends are all doing amazingly well,” he told his Facebook followers.

Wallenda went on to say, “In fact all of them with the exception of my sister, have been back on stage performing in one capacity or another.”

He called the performers’ survival “miraculous.”

“If you don’t believe in God, you better now because it’s a miracle. One of the guys was up over 40 feet high on the pyramid and he will walk out of the hospital on his own and he had three broken toes. That’s a miracle, guys,” Wallenda told Fox News.

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Without a Net

The Wallendas were preparing for a performance of Circus Sarasota, in the city of Sarasota, the family’s base of operations.

Eight people were involved; four were walking on a wire 25 feet above the ground holding two more who were balanced on beams held by the bottom four. A seventh person was balanced on a beam between those two. An eighth person was riding the shoulders of the top person.

Something went wrong, sending five of the eight performers plummeting to the ground below. Three managed to grab the wire as they fell.

Rick Wallenda, who had performed the pyramid act in the past, told Fox News, “The four guys on the wire, they have to be synchronized in their steps.”

Apparently someone got out of sync, and the rest were at the mercy of gravity.

The Wallenda Family (not all members of the act are related by blood) is famous for never using safety nets while performing. This adds a very real element of danger to their stunts—and in this case, it caused tragedy.

Of the five who were hurt, only Rietta Wallenda, Nik and Rick’s sister, suffered serious injuries. Riette sustained damage to her leg and hip which still keeps her from performing more than two years later.

Nik Wallenda had a positive take on Rietta’s recovery. “My sister herself, she is training right now, and I know it is her greatest desire to perform again,” he said on Facebook.

Rietta’s mother Carla told the story somewhat differently.

“It’s been really tragic. Every time I see her come out of her house or walking over with her bad limp and the pain that she’s in tears, I see her often,” Carla Wallenda told Fox News.

Still, her injuries could have been much worse.

“She was coming down head first when some guy from the side came running in and hit her and turned her over so she didn’t land straight on her head. (He) saved her life,” Rick Wallenda said.

The Circus Family’s Famous Stunt

The Wallenda family first started performing as a circus act in Europe during the 1780s. The family started with juggling and acrobatics, but gained notoriety for their expertise on the trapeze.

Karl Wallenda, born in 1905, started performing with his family at the age of six. Around the age of 15 he started doing high-wire acts, eventually developing a four-person pyramid with his brother Herman, Josef Geiger, and Helen Kreis, whom Wallenda later married, according to Wallenda.com

This pyramid consisted of Herman Wallenda and Josef Geiger on bicycles, on a high wire, supporting Karl on a chair balanced on a bar, with Helen Kreis standing on Karl’s shoulders.

Based on the strength of this act, the Wallendas came to the United States in 1928 and joined the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus. The troupe took the name “The Flying Wallendas” and continued to develop their signature pyramid.

The Wallendas then created the seven-person pyramid in 1948.

Two team members were killed and a third paralyzed when the pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit.

Karl Wallenda died in a fall while crossing a wire stretched between two towers in downtown San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1978. He was 73 and still actively performing.

‘Never give up’

The Wallendas embody the circus adage, “The show must go on.”

“From a professional standpoint, you want to study so you don’t repeat the mistake,” Rick Wallenda told Fox News.

Nik Wallenda told his Facebook followers that despite the trauma he had suffered from seeing his friends and family hurt, he intends to carry on, and he urged others to do the same.

“My family for seven generations and 200 years have lived by those words, ‘Never give up,’ and it is my deepest and strongest desire to inspire you guys to never give up,” he said in his video.

“No matter what challenge you are facing you can make it through, just like our family has.”