A horrified live audience in Brazil watched an acrobat fall to his death after a circus stunt went awry.
Wilson Gomes Barreto , 28, fell 35 feet onto the stage after the accident, which took place in Londrina, south Brazil. The town is located around 350 miles west of Sao Paulo.
Footage of the incident has since surfaced, and it shows the Circus Tihany Spectacular employees rushing to aid Barreto as soon as crashed onto the stage. It also depicts Barreto missing his jump as he tried to perform a dangerous manoeuvre called the Russian Litter.
You can check out the harrowing clip below:
The video shows him swinging in a carriage alongside numerous other acrobats at the side of the stage, and he continues to get higher and higher as their speed increases. In the middle of the stage numerous other circus performers construct a net in order to catch Barreto. Sadly, he released himself too early and plummeted to the ground.
Barreto remained conscious immediately after the fall, as medics rushed over to treat him for injuries. But he soon began to complain about a pain in his elbow, and when he arrived at a hospital for treatment doctors noted that his brain had begun to swell following the incident.
Barreto succumbed to his injuries on May 19, a day after his fall, according to the Ringmaster of the circus. He also added that Barreto died because he jumped from the wrong angle of the carriage, which caused him to miss his target.
The director at Circus Tihany Spectacular , Richard Massone, insisted that the act is still 100 percent safe, and confirmed that Barreto’s death was the first accident in the company’s history. Massone declared, “They expect happy moments from a circus, not traumatic ones.”
A spokesperson for the hospital revealed that Barreto had died because of severe brain injury and he’d also suffered cardiorespiratory arrest.