It’s pretty cut and dry – a Brazilian man climbed up some truss, barefoot, and while traversing his way, barefoot, across the downstage truss, he contacted some high voltage lines that were dangerously close to the truss itself. An arc flash occurred, he more than likely died instantly, and fell to the ground, very dead.
Scroll down for a video compilation I put together from several sources.
Sorry to sound harsh here, but this all seemed like a good idea to Daniel Guedes, who was reportedly drunk at the Festa de Uva in Natuba, Paraiba state, Brazil. That’s why he’s very dead. Unfortunately, some hundreds of people watched his demise as well, as Raniery Gomes‘ forro band was playing when they discovered that there was a dude climbing across the truss. It looks as though he either grabbed ahold of those higher voltage lines or his back came in contact with them, but none of that matters now.
You have to ask yourself where security was while this guy was ascending the truss, right? He got himself up there, barefoot, and climbed across the truss. Screams of “he’s going to fall!” rang through the crowd, and Raniery Gomes himself called out over the microphone directly to Guedes: “‘Get down from there man. My brother be careful.” Then he called out to security — “Hey guys, there’s a man on top of here. Everyone’s going crazy with fear because he’s up there on top of the stage. Somebody please come and get him down from there.”
From the NY Post article:
But Guedes, who was stepping over wires barefoot, appeared oblivious to the danger he was in.
He sat down for a while, his feet straddling over the rig, before again clambering clumsily across the apparatus.
As he moved towards two wires, his back appeared to touch the high voltage cables, sparking a massive explosion.
Sparks flew and a burst of a bright white light accompanied by grisly buzzing and fizzing noises signaled the man’s demise.
The audience screamed in horror as the lights went out and white smoke billowed above the stage.
One traumatized concertgoer said: “It was the most horrifying and scary thing to watch because we knew it was going to end in disaster. Goodness knows how he managed to get up there without anyone seeing.”
That is completely f*cking insane. We all want to point some blame, but Daniel Guedes sure made a poor choice of actions and got away with it somehow in some lax security.
That is gnarly. Guedes experienced some arc flash and became the conduit for that electricity to try to reach the ground — a very real danger to those of us who work in Entertainment. But I have to say I don’t think I have ever assembled a rig that close to high power lines, and I’ve never been at a gig where security let someone get this far into their own death.
Arc blast incidents can reach up to 35,000°F, which is several times hotter than our Sun. People who have survived these incidents in full PPE (personal protective equipment) have reported being deaf, blind, parts of their body vaporized or blown off from the power, even little bits of metal embedded in their teeth from the metal being instantly liquefied and deposited into that bone material. An arc blast occurs when electrons in a high voltage situation are given another path to ground — like a tool, your hand, or in Daniel’s case here, his whole body.
Warning, this is some very real stuff.
And just as a side note — check out a Brazilian newscaster and some interview footage — these folks do NOT play around.
Hat tips:
