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Indiana Stage Collapse Claims Sixth Person's Life

By Mark Memmott
Published August 19, 2011 at 1:45 PM EDT
Aug. 13, 2011: A stage collapses at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. Six people have died from the injuries they received.
Joey Foley
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Getty Images
Aug. 13, 2011: A stage collapses at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. Six people have died from the injuries they received.

Sad news from the Indianapolis Star:

"Jennifer Haskell, 22, a senior at Ball State University, died this morning from injuries suffered in Saturday's stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair.

"Haskell is the sixth person to die as a result of the tragedy, when a stage setup collapsed on fans prior to a Sugarland concert. The event also killed Haskell's best friend, Alina Bigjohny, 23, who was hired in July to teach English at Wilson Middle School in Muncie."

Dozens of people were injured when a storm blew through the fairgrounds and collapsed the stage.

The disaster has renewed questions about safety inspections of outdoor stages and whether fair authorities should have canceled the show well before bad weather arrived.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott
Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
See stories by Mark Memmott
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