Onlookers screamed in terror as a female trapeze performer fell 40ft to the ground head-first at a packed circus in Belarus when a stunt went wrong.
During the mobile phone footage, Yulia Tikaeva is seen to swing between two other performers before slipping.
She continued flying through the air before falling and hitting the edge of the safety net as she crashed to the ground, reports the Daily mail.
The 20-year-old was carried away unconscious on a stretcher after the fall. She is now in intensive care with “serious head injuries”.
Children and their parents watched in horror as the Moscow artist fell the equivalent of four storeys, landing on a hard floor during the acrobatic performance in Gomel.
She has major swelling on her head but doctors say ‘no bones are broken’, and she has been under close medical observation since the accident on Friday.
A spokesman for Gomel city circus said: “Yulia is still receiving medical treatment. Her skeleton is intact, there are no fractures.
“She has a head haematoma but doctors say that so far surgery is not needed. Time will go and we’ll see how she feels. All of us are thinking about her. Many thanks once again for being worried about her.”
Another source said her head injuries were “serious’.
A spectator called Elena said: ‘She was not caught in time she fell behind the safety net, with her face down. We had seats in the sixth row and saw how she was down…
‘The crowd applauded when she was carried away on a stretcher. Circus workers say that by the end of the show that night they received a call from hospital that the girl was alive but still unconscious.’
Another member of the audience Margarita said Yulia ‘was flying from the hands of one male artist to another.
