A Cirque Du Soleil acrobat has died after plunging 15 metres from a safety wire in front of a packed audience at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas.
Sarah (Sassoon) Guyard, 31, was suspended from a wire in the final fight scene of the production Ka when audience members said she slipped free and fell into the pit below the stage.
One audience member seated a few rows from the stage told the Las Vegas Weekly that the show momentarily continued on Saturday night before the music stopped and screams and groans could be heard coming from the pit, which was out of the view of the audience members.
“(The artist) was being hoisted up the side of the stage and then just plummeted down,” audience member Dan Mosqueda told the Las Vegas Weekly.
“Initially, a lot of people in the audience thought it was part of the choreographed fight. But you could hear screaming, then groaning, and we could hear a female artist crying from the stage.”
Ms Guyard, a mother of two young children who had more than 22 years’ experience as an acrobat, was taken to University Medical Centre where she was pronounced dead.
Cirque Du Soleil released a statement saying the group was ”deeply saddened” by Ms Guyard’s death.
”The artist’s immediate family has been informed of the accident. Our thoughts are with her family and the entire Cirque du Soleil family.”
Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte released his own statement saying he was ”heartbroken”.
”I wish to extend my sincerest sympathies to the family,” he said.
”We are all completely devastated with this news. Sassoon was an artist with the original cast of Ka since 2006 and has been an integral part of our Cirque du Soleil tight family. We are reminded, with great humility and respect, how extraordinary our artists are each and every night. Our focus now is to support each other as a family.
“We have been working with the appropriate authorities and have offered our full co-operation. Performances of Ka will be cancelled until further notice.”
Following the accident, one audience member, @AnnieR, tweeted that the “wire snapped” and the performer “fell fast & awkwardly at LEAST 50 feet into pit”.
”Other actors were visibly upset & horrified. Crew members were calm & one by one got the other performers off stage,” she tweeted.
It is the second safety incident at a Cirque Du Soleil event in Las Vegas this week, according to the Las Vegas Weekly.
On Wednesday night, a performer in one of the final preview performances of Michael Jackson One suffered a mild concussion after slipping through the slack rope in one of the show’s scenes.
The performer reportedly missed the protective pad and landed hard on the stage.
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– AP
