This is a scary story of a freak accident happening at the Nebraska-Rutgers game from the weekend. A small mirror fell from the Memorial Stadium press box and struck a 70 year old fan in the head, sending him to the hospital.
Details from the Lincoln Journal Star:
The 4-by-6 inch black, handheld mirror fell out of the sky, tumbling toward the head of a 70-year-old retired Nebraska judge during halftime, just as he was turning around to talk to a friend a few rows back.
At first he thought it was a bottle, until he saw the glass shards scattered at the feet of those around him.
A season-ticket holder since the 1970s, Carlton Clark has come to consider those sitting around him family.
“They care about you,” Clark said.
So when the mirror hit Clark’s head and sent him falling onto the seats and down to the concrete, his Husker family leaned over him and began to help. They yelled for medics and started tending to the bloodied 1½-inch gash.
“It sounded like a gunshot when it hit,” Clark said. The mirror shattered, sending pieces flying, one of which cut a woman sitting nearby.
The Journal Star speculates that the mirror might have fallen from the ESPN broadcast booth and down into the stands below and even mentions Clark hoping the network might pay for medical expenses. (In theory, one would suppose there wouldn’t be a need for a sportswriter or radio broadcaster to have a handheld mirror on hand.)
However, the outlet also says that Clark’s seat is not directly beneath the ESPN broadcast position at Memorial Stadium. So how exactly this episode occurred is still a mystery. ESPN declined comment on the story when reached this afternoon by AA.
Clark got 8 staples in his head to close an inch-and-a-half sized wound but says he’ll be in his seat for the next Nebraska home game. Thankfully (and quite fortunately), Clark was not seriously injured as this story could have been much, much worse.
UPDATE: KHGI has an interview with the fan and a news story on the matter as seen below. The report mentions a university inquiry that discovered someone inadvertently knocking the mirror out of the ESPN broadcast booth.
KHGI-TV/KWNB-TV/KHGI-CD-Grand Island, Kearney, Hastings
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