WATCH: Lights Fall on High School Wrestler
Published at
iStockPhoto/Thinkstock(MADISON, S.C.) — It’s one thing to compete in an athletic event under the spotlight. It’s another thing to have the spotlight fall directly on you.
That’s exactly what happened to South Dakota high school student Michael McComish when a spotlight fell from the gym’s rafters directly on top of him during a wrestling match against a competitor from a local high school.
McComish, a Madison High School senior, was lining up in the referee’s position during the 160-pound match of his school’s annual “Madison Square Garden Night” last Friday when he got the shock of his life.
“I walked over to the center, set, and the next thing I know the lights are on top of me,” McComish told ABC News affiliate KSFY. “It’s bright. I couldn’t stand up, it was awkward. I fell back down and got some cuts on my knees.”
Video captured by the Madison Daily Leader and posted on YouTube shows the moment the nearly 80-pound, round aluminum light fixture used to spotlight the center of the wrestling mat fell 30 feet directly onto McComish as he crouched down in the mat’s center.
Despite the impact, McComish escaped with only minor cuts and required just a few stitches to close a wound on his forehead.
“Just letting everyone know I’m fine! Stitches in my head. Gash on forehead and back of me head and little cuts from the glass nothin serious,” he tweeted later that night.
McComish, who could not be reached today by ABC News, and his family say they do not plan on pressing charges against the school district, according to KSFY.
“If I would have been standing or if the mat wouldn’t have been in the right place, it would have done serious damage,” McComish told KSFY.
Madison High School officials told the Daily Leader the accident was caused when a rope holding the spotlight broke.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio