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THERE IS NO VIDEO OF OWEN FALLING ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET.
IF YOU SAY YOU HAVE SEEN IT, YOU ARE LYING OR
MISTAKEN.
In addition... I do not believe there are any still
photographs of Owen falling either. It is possible that
some might exist, but I find it unlikely and here is why...
Owen fell a total of 78 feet. He reached a speed of 50
miles per hour. That translates to about 73 feet per
second. That means he hit the ring in just over a second.
It's not like in the movies where it seems like it takes 20
seconds for someone to fall that far. Since nearly the
entire arena was not aware he was even up in the rafters,
there is no way for someone to react fast enough to do
anything.
Owen
Hart 5/23/99
Kemper Arena, Kansas City, MO
Clicking
on most pictures will give
you a larger view in a new window
Here is the ladder that goes to the catwalk just behind
where I was sitting. Owen went up our aisle to get to the
access point.
Here is a picture of the catwalk above me and Owen and his
escort wearing street clothes over his wrestling outfit.
You can barely make out his blue wrestling boots from his
Blue Blazer costume. He is heading over to the rigging to
prepare for his repel down to the ring. When Owen walked up
my aisle I didn't even notice he was there. The girl in
front of me said to her boyfriend she thought Jeff Jarrett
was coming up our aisle. Then the boyfriend as well as me
and my friend looked at the guy and saw it was Owen Hart.
This may be the last known photo of Owen before he died.
In the next picture I have circled the curtain in the
rafters. This is the area where Owen removed the street
clothes he was wearing over his wrestling outfit. This is
also where he was put in the harness to be lowered out down
to the ring. He would step off the catwalk, hang for a
second and then fall after the trigger that releases the
harness accidentally gets tripped by something and the
latch snaps.
I took this picture just seconds before Owen Hart fell. I
have circled where the curtain is that he is standing
behind. You can see on the screen they are still showing a
clip of Owen hart talking with Kevin Kelly from an earlier
interview. That video was also playing on the Titan Tron.
Just after I took the last picture Owen Hart fell to the
ring. These are immediately after he fell out of the
rigging when he stepped off the catwalk and fell. His head
and legs hit the ropes right by the turnbuckle and then he
bounced over into that position. At this moment he's been
laying there for about 3 or 4 seconds maybe less.
At this point I had taken the last picture on my roll of
film and was having to wait for it to rewind so I could
change it out for a new roll. Maybe up to a minute of time
passed. Before I was able to get these pictures of the
emergency crew attending to Owen Hart. In this first one
you can see Jerry Lawler standing outside the ring in front
next to the man in the red shirt. Jim Ross sits alone at
the announce table.
In the photo below Lawler has climbed in the ring and is
looking on right in front of the referee (Jimmy Kordaris)
with his hands on his head. That is also the ref that Owen
supposedly yelled at as he fell to move so he didn't land
on him. Any time I see him referee a match today I always
think of this picture.
At
this point they are preparing to move Owen out of the ring.
After the PPV was over I took this picture so I could have
some perspective as to how far he fell. This shows approx
where he fell from. I have circled where the curtain in the
rafters was located. He supposedly was traveling 80
Kilometers/hour (50 mph) when he hit according to the court
transcripts.
The reported actual distance is 78 feet. This coincides
with my original estimate the night I saw it happen that it
was between 70-80 feet. In the early days after it
happened, information ranged from anywhere between 50 to
100 feet.
This picture is from November 1998 at Survivor Series 1998
in St. Louis, MO. I took it during Sunday Night Heat
right before the PPV started. Owen is performing the stunt
he would die from 6 months later.
I am also including a few other photos I have found over
the years. 2 are Associated Press photos that went out on
the wire for papers who were going to run a story about it.
Another is the front page of a news paper the next day.
Here I am including some scans of the Kansas City Star
newspaper I purchased the next morning (Monday, May 24,
1999) before leaving the hotel to head to St. Louis for Raw
the following night. Click on the thumbnails to see larger
versions.
Here are scans of my tickets from the Over the Edge PPV and
Raw from the next night where they did the tribute to Owen.
The PPV stub is the actual ticket I used. The Raw stub is
an unused extra ticket I had, because I am unable to locate
my original at this time. Click on the thumbnail to see the
larger versions.
