Video captures terrifying moment human cannonball falls from net in stunt gone wrong
A stuntman known as the Rocketman Valencia has been injured in a human cannonball stunt gone wrong that was captured on camera.
Chachi Valencia, who told USA TODAY he has been involved in human cannonball acts for 30 years, was performing at the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival in Indio, California, on March 2 when he landed too close to the edge of the safety net, sending him flying onto the concrete below.
Video captured by spectator Michael Betzler and shared with newswire service Storyful shows the adrenaline-pumping moment that Valencia landed in the net before bouncing and falling to the ground, causing audience members to gasp and race to his aid.
Valencia, a sixth-generation circus performer, explained that the accident was the result of a gust of wind. He told USA TODAY that each cannonball shot, of which he does 300 to 500 a year, requires a careful set of calculations that take into consideration everything from wind to cloud cover and beyond.
In this case, he said, they had practiced the shot the day before in windy weather, but with gusts pushing directly back against Valencia, causing him to fall short of the middle of the net. They adjusted calculations to compensate but on the day of the accident, a rouge blast of wind hit Valencia sideways just as he was being shot into the air.
"We got a gust of wind coming at me from left to right and then it threw me off to one side and I just happened to land on the edge and happened to hit the edge of the net, which probably saved my life," he said.
Valencia suffered a lacerated liver, broken ribs, a broken wrist and an L1 vertebrae fracture.
A lifelong circus performer, he began working with this specific stunt 30 years ago when he "married into a human cannonball family." For the first 15 or so of those years, he shot his now ex-wife out of the cannon before becoming the star of the show himself.
"It's something that came to me very fast, very quickly, very easily, so it was almost like it was something I was meant to be doing," he said. And he doesn't plan to stop, even after the latest accident, which he called the most serious in his career.
While Valencia plans to get back on the horse as soon as possible, he is stuck in something of a limbo until then. Without formal health insurance or a clear timeline of when he can get back to work, Valencia said the stress of medical and household bills looms closer than fear of repeating the stunt in the future.
A GoFundMe for Valencia had raised over $11,500 toward a $55,000 goal as of Monday evening.
"Of course, this is how I make a living, this is my career but I don't just do it for that ... I do it because of what I get from it, from the kids, from the people," he said. "Being in awe of what they just witnessed ... the connecting with the audience and the little kids. For kids it's kind of like you're a superhero to them, so it's something I enjoy doing."
The first human cannonball in history is believed to have been 17-year-old Rossa Matilda Richter, who launched at the Royal Aquarium in London in 1877 under the name Zazel.
Later, Ildebrando Zacchini invited a cannon that used compressed air to launch humans in 1922, eventually earning Zacchini family members a spot in the Ringling Brothers Circus Hall of Fame. While the act was once more popular in the heyday of mainstream circus performing, it is dangerous and more rarely performed in the modern age.
Valencia said it is relatively uncommon to run into another human cannonball now. And, because circus work is generally independent employment that entails moving from place to place as one gets contracts, there isn't necessarily a lot of collaboration happening in the space.
Still, said Valencia, he plans to remain one of those performers after he recovers.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Human cannonball injured in California stunt gone wrong, video shows
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