Fenway Increases Security after Woman Falls During Rolling Stones Show
Source Associated Press
BOSTON -- Fans at Tuesday's Rolling Stones concert were to see more security than on opening night, when a woman climbed onto the rafters of Boston's Fenway Park and fell to the seats below.
Claire O'Leary, 20, of Westport, Connecticut, was hospitalized with two broken ankles and a broken wrist after she fell 35 to 40 feet (10.5 to 12 meters) Sunday from the rafters above the right-field grandstand.
Additional officers were going to be stationed in the grandstands Tuesday night.
Although more than 50 police officers and Red Sox security personnel patrolled the ballpark during Sunday's concert, they didn't see O'Leary climbing. City officials said they hadn't realized a fan could reach the rafters from the stands at Fenway.
Emergency workers cleared the seats beneath O'Leary before she fell, which helped avoid injury to other concertgoers, police said. Firefighters were also dispatched to bring her down, but they didn't reach her in time.
''This is one of those freak things that no one could prevent from happening,'' said Patricia Malone, director of the mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing.
Officer Michael McCarthy, a spokesman for the Boston police, said O'Leary was ''very belligerent, uncooperative and verbally abusive toward medical staff.''
''If she had hit someone (when she fell), she would have killed them,'' he said. ''People need to be responsible for their own actions as well.''
Sunday's show was the first on the Stones' new North American tour.
(c) 2005 Associated Press