https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-65303102

Horror after Chinese trapeze artist falls to her death during display

By Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring

A Chinese acrobat died after falling during a trapeze performance on Saturday.

The woman, surnamed Sun, fell during a flying-trapeze performance in the city of Suzhou in central Anhui province.

Footage shared online shows the gymnast falling on to a hard stage after a routine went wrong with her acrobatic partner, who is also her husband.

Ms Sun fell from a significant height after he failed to catch her with his legs during a stunt.

She was taken to hospital where efforts by doctors to save her life failed. The popular news website The Paper reported that she leaves behind two children.

Officials say an investigation is under way into the incident.

According to The Paper, Ms Sun and her husband, surnamed Zhang, had worked together for many years and had often performed without safety belts "for the sake of looking good".

The footage has horrified people in China, and although social media users in the country have acknowledged that acrobatics carry a high level of risk, they have also voiced their concerns about the industry's lax safety measures.

Some on the Weibo social network have commented that they have seen similar performances take place in the country without a safety mat or net, and are calling for better regulation in the industry.

There has also been significant debate in the media over who is to blame.

The local Culture and Tourism Department says that the performance troupe behind the act had not gained sufficient approval to carry out the act in the first place, and that they would be "dealt with accordingly".

The Paper shared archive footage of the couple, who are often seen performing stunts at high altitudes and simply relying on each other's strength for survival.

It says that the decision not to use safety belts spanned from working in a "highly competitive" industry, with them earning "relatively more money" by performing riskier acts.

On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 04:01:42 -0700 (PDT), Big Mongo
<bigmongo1963@gmail.com> wrote:

>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-65303102
>
>Horror after Chinese trapeze artist falls to her death during display

There's video here (enjoy the ads!):
https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/video-shows-chinese-acrobat-falling-to-her-death/

It shows him hanging from a bar. She's facing him, standing on his
feet and holding his shoulders. When he's tilting back at close to 45
degrees, she releases her feet, so she's only holding on with her
hands to his shoulders. When he's tilted a full 90 degrees back (like
Superman flying), he begins to kick his legs forward, and she lets go
entirely. As she drops below him, he's vertical, and it looks to me
like his feet are there; she simply misses them. You see her begin to
drop, and the clip ends.

She was 37. The article said she was not killed immediately by the
impact.

They should have been using a net, of course, but even a big,squishy
pad would probably have saved her life.

David Carson
--
Dead or Alive Data Base
http://www.doadb.com