by Adriana Chechik (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
TwitchCon is seeing an unusual number of injuries this year due to what appears to be a very unsafe foam pit that has left attendees with dislocated knees, twisted ankles and broken bones.
Twitch broadcaster and adult entertainer Adriana Chechik jumped into the pit doing the splits and lands on her tail. When he tried to get out of the pit he said “I can’t get up”.
Early this morning, Chechik confirmed that she was not at all well. “So I broke my back in two places and I’m having surgery to put a measuring rod in for support today.” he wrote on Twitter. “Send your support. When it rains it pours and I’m definitely feeling the rain right now.”
The foam pit was a joint promo between Intel and Lenovo. A Lenovo representative told Kotaku:
“We are aware of incidents of TwitchCon visitors being injured in the soft foam pit of the gladiator game at the Lenovo booth. The area has since been closed to any further use while we work with the event organizers to investigate the incidents.”
Apparently a big part of the problem was that the foam piece was deceptively shallow, with only a few blocks of foam between the top and the floor. Real foam pits are supposed to be deep enough to swallow you, and that’s clearly not the case here. Nathan Grayson of the Washington Post tweeted that the pit “rises just past my knee” and “the foam blocks are… not exactly soft,” which seems to defeat the purpose of a soft foam pit — neither soft nor actually a pit.
According to BuzzFeed:
“According a British manufacturer of foam pitstypical gym pits should be at least 6 feet deep, with a foam base for shock absorption. USA Gymnastics he said foam pits vary from 4 to 8 feet in depth and are usually built on a trampoline base.
The pit was closed around noon on Sunday.
Back injuries are incredibly serious and can lead to chronic pain and reduced mobility. Clearly this could have a serious impact on Chechik’s career. The streamer and adult performer has 3.8 million followers on Instagram, over 800,000 on Twitch, and has been nominated for (and won) countless awards at the Adult Video News Awards.
I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this in the coming days, as this certainly seems like something that will spark lawsuits. Attendees had to sign a waver to enter the foam pit, but apparently people were unaware of the pit’s dangerous design flaws.
