Six workers injured at Ford Field after Ed Sheeran concert
By Faraz Javed , Natalia Escalante
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DETROIT (WXYZ) — Multiple people were hospitalized after an Ed Sheeran concert at Ford Field Saturday night.
Officials at Ford Field say the incident happened in the stadium’s vehicle tunnel as crews were loading out. Specific details about the incident haven’t been released by officials yet.
The Detroit Fire Department says six adults were taken to the hospital. Superior Ambulance, which was staffing the event, took two people to the hospital. Detroit Emergency Medical Services took four other people to the hospital.
None of the injuries are life threatening, the fire department said. When the patients were taken to the hospital, two were in serious condition and four were in stable condition.
“I heard there were six people injured, me being in one of them,” James Dishman said.
It was Dishman’s first day on the job as a temporary worker at Ford Field. The Virginia man says he was among the workers caught in the chaos but escaped with relatively minor injuries.
Twenty-four-year-old Roxana Padilla says she saw the incident up close and was one of the people injured. Padilla works as a supervisor for Minutemen Staffing, a company that supplies workers for events at Ford Field.
“I didn’t even know if I should scream. I was literally right in front of the (golf) cart, right in front of everything. Like I saw everything coming through. Out of nowhere, I see right behind her a really big forklift coming so fast, so fast, like I don’t even know how many miles per hour. And one second I thought, he’s not going to stop,” Padilla said.
She says crews had finished cleaning the stadium floor and were heading toward a tunnel used by vehicles and equipment. That’s when Padilla says a forklift crashed into a golf cart at the bottom of the tunnel. The golf cart was carrying two of her colleagues.
“… we see the forklift driving so fast right here. And that’s when it impacted the mini (golf) cart. The mini (golf) cart just flipped over. Everybody got out, like they got out of the mini cart. They fell. It went 360, and then the forklift just kept driving,” Padilla said.
Padilla shared a picture of the forklift taken by one of her employees. Padilla says she tried to get out of the way but was hit during the chaos.
“I was bleeding. Like you could see the whole entire blood all over the floor. My brother’s right there, stepping on it right now,” she said pointing to the picture. “That was the forklift that hit the stage. This is the mini (golf) cart that I was talking about that she was in that flipped over. There was a lot of employees everywhere. That was the forklift that hit the stage. That’s where it impacted.”
As Padilla recovers, she’s waiting to see if she will need surgery.
“I felt like a lot of pain on my jaw, within my chin, my nose. They said that I had fractured my nose and my septum,” she said. “… we’re just going to wait til the swelling goes down and see if we need surgery.”
“Why were they driving fast? Like, I don’t understand still.”
Ford Field said one of the six workers injured is a member of their team.
“Ford Field has begun a full review and is cooperating with the appropriate authorities and with the event’s production partners. Out of respect for the people involved and the integrity of that review, we will not speculate on the cause. We are grateful to the Detroit Fire Department and EMS for their rapid response,” Ford Field said in a statement.
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