A punk rock-loving concertgoer is partially paralyzed and can only move her arms after a singer launched himself into the crowd and landed on her head during a show in New York last month.
Bird Piché, 24, suffered a “catastrophic spinal cord injury” at the Trophy Eyes concert at the Mohawk Place in Buffalo, NY, on April 30th, according to WGRZ.
Footage posted to the Australian post-punk rock band’s Reddit page shows the moment frontman John Floreani jumps from the stage and is perched up in the air by the rowdy crowd.
Piché’s pink hair can be seen bobbing to the music near the front of the stage with others in the packed-out 230-person venue moments before the singer’s jump.
Floreani flies off the stage in the blink of an eye and lands directly on her head while others lift the lead singer, seemingly unaware she’s seriously injured.
The 24-year-old never reappears in the 13-second clip.
“The video is wild because unless you knew that someone was hurt in the video, you’d never expect that,” Piché’s friend Leo Wolter Tejera told the outlet. “Like it’s just an average stage dive.”
Wolter Tejera said Reddit users who claimed to be in the crowd thought Piché “fainted” and went to get her a cold rag.
However, the show was abruptly stopped when other concertgoers saw her still on the ground.
“She wasn’t getting up, and John, the singer, was like right there with her,” Wolter Tejera said.
Floreani rode in the ambulance with his devoted fan to Erie County Medical Center (ECMC), where she was rushed into “emergency trauma surgery.”
Piché suffered injuries to her spinal cord and her stay in the hospital is indefinite, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help her with medical expenses.
She will need extensive rehab immediately after she’s cleared, Wolter Tejeras said.
“To my understanding and the conversation we’ve heard so far from doctors is with catastrophic spinal injuries, you just can’t tell and they take a lot of time and patience to see what the outcome is really gonna be,” Wolter Tejeras told the outlet.
Trophy Eyes said the incident has “shaken us all to our core.”
“Out of respect for the family, we have refrained from speaking about this publicly so far, but with the blessing of their family we are now able to say how truly heartbroken we are to be here now,” the band wrote. “Our friend, Bird, is now in recovery but still has a long road ahead for them.”
“The situation has shaken us all to our core, and we ask for patience while we look to help Bird navigate this difficult time.”
The band says they remain in “close contact” with Piché’s family and “look to help Bird navigate this difficult time.”
Trophy Eyes made a $5,000 donation to her crowdfunding page.
A bartender at Mohawk Place says the venue has had a strict “no crowd surfing policy” since 2011, according to WKBW.
“There are signs posted everywhere in the venue and notice was included in the emails for this show with the show’s promoter and the band themselves,” Mohawk Place’s general manager Mike Thor wrote in a statement to the outlet.
Wolter Tejeras, a musician, expressed the dangers fans face at shows that attract a high level of physical energy and antics can be for concertgoers such as mosh pitting.
“The thing about mosh pits is that there needs to be consent. The number one rule of the pit is if someone falls, you pick them up and that you don’t pull anyone into the pit that didn’t want to be there,” Wolter Tejeras told WKBW.
“The problem with what happened at this moment was there was no implied consent. There was just a body falling down from the sky onto a person who didn’t know that was going to be happening.”
