The husband-and-wife acrobatic team somehow disconnected during their performance in Suzhou, China. The plunge led to her death.

According to the Straits Times,

” Authorities are investigating the death of an acrobat, who fell while performing with her husband during a live flying-trapeze performance in Suzhou, China, last Saturday.

Videos of the graphic incident posted on social media showed that the couple was pulled high into the air from the ground by what appears to be a crane.

In the videos, the woman was later seen falling from reportedly more than 9m high, after her husband failed to catch her with his legs during the performance.”

This incident brought back childhood memories of a circus coming to Holland Village in Singapore. I was probably around 7 or 8 years old. We were living in a farm. I remember my lorry-driver father telling us that there was a tent circus coming. We obviously wanted to go but had no money to buy tickets for our big family of ten children.

Later, I remember my father coming home one night with the news that a girl acrobat had fallen to her death from a trapeze.

That news had a powerful imprint on me.

I can’t explain why I was so unequivocal about it. But I decided right there and then that it was not right for people with money to put others in dangerous situations just to entertain themselves.