By Jonathan Blackburn
Copyright glasgowlive
A Lanarkshire woman was left in a wheelchair after being crushed and seriously injured by a falling crowd surfer while watching her favourite band.
Mum-of-three Kimberley Alexander, originally from Cumbernauld, travelled to Paris in 2022 to see My Chemical Romance, but was left with severe spinal injuries after being crushed between the barrier and the crowd surfer. She was pulled over the barrier by security staff, but then dropped again, splitting her head open.
Kimberley awoke in a French hospital the next day, and was discharged without three spinal injuries being identified. She has since suffered two strokes believed to be related to the injuries and is reliant on a wheelchair.
Kimberley, 42, was travelling back to Scotland after watching the American group in Milton Keynes when a friend called to say he had a spare ticket for the emo band’s show at the Accor Arena in Paris the following week. She found £30 flights and flew to Paris to meet her friend, with a cardboard cut-out of lead singer Gerard Way in tow.
They queued all day to be right at the front of the second row of barriers, with an unobstructed view of the band. She said: “Even before the gig started, there was this big guy, he was towering above everyone else. He was obviously intoxicated and he was pushing everybody over.
“My friend was translating for me, and security were telling him ‘You need to calm down’. It didn’t feel right. I’ve been to hundreds of shows and I just had this horrible feeling.
“He kept pushing, and about halfway through the show he just went crazy. I don’t remember how it happened, but about 50 people fell. I got my friend up off the ground and threw him over the barrier to get him out.
“The next thing I knew there was a smash, and a guy was on top of my head. I just covered my head and hoped for the best – but he slammed me against the barrier.
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“Two members of security picked him up and then dropped him again. My head was smashed into the barrier, and then my neck and head went over after him. I heard a series of pops in my neck and then I lost all consciousness.”
After that, Kimberley can only piece events together from what she has been told by others. She was pulled out of the crowd by security personnel, one of whom picked her up “like a baby” and began running to the exit with her unconscious body. She was then dropped on her head, her head splitting open.
She said: “Running with someone who has just been smashed over the head seems insane to me. The next thing I remember, I woke up in hospital, covered in blood. Everyone was talking to me in French and I had no idea what was happening.”
Kimberley was given a CT scan, and her worried parents had to call the British Embassy to find out what had happened to her. She was discharged from hospital and flew back to Scotland the following evening.
She said: “They just sent me out into the sun. I don’t remember how I got to the hotel, and I barely remember coming home.”
Immediately after returning home, Kimberley began experiencing strange symptoms that became progressively worse, including pins and needles in her left side, and episodes where it became “completely numb”.
She said: “I would be in hospital for weeks at a time, and everyone was scratching their heads. Eventually, they found that I had smashed my full spine. I had compression of the spinal cord, a cyst in my thoracic spine, and I smashed the bottom bit as well. Because I had no spinal care, it didn’t help in any way.”
Kimberley’s neurologist believes the injury led to two strokes. She has a permanent weakness on her left side, drop foot paralysis, and is in constant neurological pain.
She uses a wheelchair, and her condition is degenerative. The injuries put an end to her ambitions of a career in aesthetic nursing, which she had been studying towards for five years.
She moved from Ayrshire back home to Cumbernauld to be closer to her parents, her three children had to move schools, and her husband gave up work to care for her full-time.
She said: “Over the last three years, I’ve sent so many emails to the Accor Arena in Paris where it happened, to executives, industry contacts, absolutely everybody I can find. I’ve had no responses whatsoever.”
The arena is owned by Ville de Paris, the city’s local council. Glasgow Live approached the council for comment, but received no response.
Kimberley has now launched a campaign to make live venues safer. She is calling for mandatory spinal injury training for staff and improved care protocols, as well as better barrier and crowd-surfing management. You can find her petition here.
She said: “I don’t want anybody to go through the same mishandling that I went through, because it could be the difference between using a chair for the rest of your life, or walking away from the situation.
“I would have been injured regardless, but the situation was greatly worsened by the lack of care I received immediately after.”
Kimberley is launching an art business with a friend who was also left disabled in an accident. The business, Melted Prints, will showcase Kimberley’s artwork on t-shirts and hats, which she says is something she can do from her bed that will give her purpose.
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