It’s spooky season, which means it’s time for pumpkin spice, scary movies, and haunted houses!
But one family from Brook Park, Ohio got a little more than they bargained for when they went to the 7 Floors of Hell haunted house at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds on September 18.
According to reports, an 11-year-old boy was accidentally stabbed when an actor using a real knife to scare customers cut the boy’s foot.
The boy, his sister, and family friends were outside of the haunted house when the incident occurred.
“He was scraping the knife on the ground and playing around with them,” Karen Bednarski, the boy’s mother, told The Washington Post. “And my son said to him, ‘I’m not afraid, your knife is fake.’ So the man was like, ‘Oh, it’s real. Trust me, it’s real.’ And that’s when he started poking it at his feet multiple times until he stabbed him.”
The knife went through the boy’s Croc and sliced his big toe.
Bednarski claims that after the actor, identified as 22-year-old Christopher Pogozelski, stabbed her son, staff initially did very little to help her son.
“They told me that they were not certified to administer first aid,” she said.
First aid was administered and the boy continued with the haunted house experience.
The police were called.
When the police arrived they confiscated the knife, which Pogozelski admitted was “not a good idea.”
The report stated that the actor, who was fired, indicated the injury to the 11-year-old was an accident.
However, Bednarski doesn’t believe it was an accident, and she later pursued charges against Pogozelski.
The 22-year-old was charged with negligent assault.
“I can’t explain why he brought the real knife,” Lt. Tom Walker with the Berea Police Department said.
“He should have been using a fake prop or rubber, rubber knife. Obviously a poor decision on his part to bring a real knife to the fairgrounds. And he’s been criminally charged with negligent assault as a result of making that decision.”
It would have never occurred to me that someone would be using a real knife at a haunted house! I’m glad the boy wasn’t seriously hurt.
Hopefully this serves as a lesson.
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