Aren't you legally required to use a net?
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-157511c.html
Garden gasps at hi-wire fall
Circus artist survives slip
By TRACY CONNOR and DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Ernando Amaya (r.), Javier Escola and Crazy Wilson Dominguez thrill circus fans withdaredevil high-wire act.
A Ringling Bros. circus daredevil shocked a crowd at Madison Square Garden yesterday when he slipped off a high wire and plunged more than 30 feet to the ground.
Wide-eyed children and adults watched in disbelief as Ernando Amaya, performing without a net, tumbled near the end of the two-hour spectacle. He somehow escaped with only minor injuries.
"I'm very lucky," Amaya later said in Spanish, according to circus officials.
"It was horrifying. I couldn't believe my eyes," said Deborah Alter of Manhattan. "He landed, bam, right on his head and neck, like a crash dummy."
Amaya, 34, from Venezuela, was taken off the Garden floor on a stretcher as a group of clowns tried to distract the stunned audience.
"It happened so quickly," said Margene Jones of Brooklyn. "First, we thought it was part of the act."
The high-wire artist suffered bruises and was taken to St. Vincent's Medical Center, where a doctor said he was conscious and alert. Amaya was being checked for possible internal injuries.
"He's a strong guy," said Dr. Daniel Rosa. "He's in wonderful physical condition, so that helped him."
Margarita Dominguez, a circus performer and wife of high-wire chief Crazy Wilson Dominguez, was at Amaya's side and said he was feeling fine. Amaya's pregnant wife is traveling with the circus but did not attend the ill-fated show.
Partners Amaya, Crazy Wilson Dominguez and Javier Escola revel in such death-defying stunts as flips and somersaults high above the crowds at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
"I like to tell other performers what we're doing and hear them tell me, 'That is not possible!'" Escola boasts in the circus' official program.
But the oohs and aahs turned to gasps near the grand finale of the 134th edition of the famed circus, which is midway through its Garden run.
Amaya was performing with Dominguez and Escola on the quarter-inch-thick wire when he lost his balance during a synchronized spin.
Amaya desperately tried to grab at the wire and a cord that secures it, but slammed to the floor on his back where there was a gap between safety mats.
"He started to sit up, so I knew he wasn't knocked out or dead," said circus band drummer Ken Huskey, who immediately launched into an "emergency tune" to cover up the horror.
Ringmaster Kevin Venardos came out to calm the crowd and the show was quickly cut short as paramedics treated Amaya.
"This is the risk we are all willing to take at the circus," Venardos said. "Anything can happen."
But the soothing words and happy music couldn't calm Alter or her three children.
"Mommy, no more circus," 2-year-old Jady Alter said again and again. "The man fell from the rope. He hurt his head."
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