HR Strange But True

Bravo!

No, he wasn’t in a production of “Batman the Musical,” but an actor did a damn good job of thwarting the impact of a workplace accident that could have injured others.

It was during the first preview of the musical “Damn Yankees” at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, reports The Hartford Courant, and the chorus of baseball players was performing a complicated dance number to “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.” involving baseball bats as props.

Cast member Danny Lindgren and others were swinging bats around their legs on the famously small stage near the end of the number when the unthinkable happened.  Lindgren says he felt the bat slip out of his hands!

“I saw the trajectory was heading towards the audience,” he told The Courant, “… and I am the only guy who could keep it all from being a tragedy.”  So he dove for the bat and caught it, tucked his legs under so he “would cause the least damage,” and landed in the orchestra pit between the saxophone and the violin.

Both the saxophone and Lindberg suffered minor damage (a bend and a cut from a music stand). “The saxophone player was shaky, but fine, too,” Lindgren reported. And the actors finished the number with the audience on their side.

So this workplace accident had a happy ending—and no one broke a leg. Bravo!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *