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Aerial Camera Falls at Rio's Olympic Park, Injuring Two Women

There hasn't been any word on how or why the cables holding the camera broke.
Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

Two women were injured when an aerial camera fell near the entrance of the Arena Carioca 2 at the Olympic Park in Rio. The women were not hit by the camera itself but rather by the cables used to suspend the camera, which "whipped against" them as it fell according to one witness who spoke to USA Today. One of the cables reportedly hit one of the women in the neck.

The witness, Flavio Oliveira, saw it happen as he and his nephew were leaving a handball match. First, his nephew heard the wires hitting the ground, then they saw the wires hit the women.

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"There was no blood. But she was crying, crying, crying," said Oliveira, 40, a medical interpreter and nursing student from Cape Cod.

At least one report mentioned that there was blood on the ground, but another witness described the injuries as "light." The women were taken to a local hospital.

The camera, which was cordoned off with barriers, is pretty hefty looking, so those cables likely had considerable force behind them when they struck the women.

Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

There hasn't been any word on how or why the cables broke, other than that they did break in the photo captions, but the USA Today report mentions there were "strong gusts of wind that knocked over chairs near the Main Press Center."

[USA Today]