Encomium
A human cannonball stuntman was killed when a safety net intended to break his fall collapsed, an inquest has heard.
24-year-old Matthew Cranch suffered multiple injuries after he plunged to the ground during Scott May’s Daredevil Stunt Show on April 25, 2011.
Mid-Kent and Medway coroner Patricia Harding, speaking at the hearing at Archbishop’s Palace, Maidstone (Kent), said: “Matthew Cranch himself was performing a stunt called the human cannonball. There is a cannon mounted on the back of a lorry and it is fired into a safety net nearby. In this particular case, as Matthew was fired out of the cannon, the net collapsed, causing Mr Cranch to land on the ground.
She continued: “He suffered multiple injuries and, tragically, he died at Maidstone Hospital that very same day”.
