KDKA-TV viewers may have noticed the absence of the station’s features reporter, Dave Crawley, over the past five months.
It turns out, according to his attorney on Wednesday, that Mr. Crawley was “severely injured” while performing a stunt on the Red Bull Flugtag, a signature attraction at the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta in August 2017.
“My client was severely injured after CBS-KDKA assigned him to do a news story to promote Red Bull Flugtag 2017 at the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta,” Washington, D.C.-based civil rights attorney Ari Wilkenfeld of Wilkenfeld, Herendeen & Atkinson said in a statement.
“The Flugtag event has resulted in a number of injuries to people in many of its stops along the way to Pittsburgh. Mr. Crawley is doing everything in his power to return to work and to continue reporting the stories of the people of Western Pennsylvania as he has been doing for 30 years.”
Mr. Wilkenfeld said Mr. Crawley ruptured his spleen but declined to elaborate on any injuries beyond that. He offered no time table for Mr. Crawley’s possible return to broadcasting or whether Mr. Crawley intends to bring a workers’ compensation claim against the station.
“We are trying to figure out where to go from here from a legal perspective,” Mr. Wilkenfeld said.
KDKA-TV general manager Chris Pike said he could not comment on employees’ health circumstances.
The Red Bull Flugtag website notes, “Red Bull Flugtag challenges the brave and brainy to design, build and pilot homemade flying machines off a 22-foot-high flight deck in hopes of soaring into the wild blue yonder … or more often, plunging into the waters below.”
Flugtag means “flying day” in German. The event last August marked the first Red Bull Flugtag in Pittsburgh.
Despite any injuries sustained, Mr. Crawley managed to file his report on the Flugtag after plunging into the Allegheny; the report is posted on the station’s YouTube page. In the video, Mr. Crawley can be seen landing in the river, face and chest first.
Walt Czekaj, 33, of the South Side, had to get 18 stitches after suffering bruised ribs, a banged-up face and swollen left hand after taking the Flugtag plunge during the Regatta. WTAE-TV reported four people were injured at the Pittsburgh event with two taken to area hospitals; the report did not identify the injured.
At least 14 people were injured at a Red Bull Flugtag event in Hong Kong in November 2016, with four requiring hospitalization.
“The Pittsburgh Flugtag was six months ago, and we first heard of this complaint of injury today [Feb. 8],” a Red Bull corporate communications spokeswoman wrote in an emailed response to Mr. Crawley’s statement. “The person making the complaint posted a video of his jump and was live on air afterwards. Red Bull has a long history of hosting major public events, and the safety of spectators and participants is always our primary concern. The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in 1991.”
Derek Weber, president of LionHeart Event Group, the Regatta’s event management company, said the Red Bull Flugtag will not return to the EQT Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta in 2018 but may return in future years. (Red Bull never brings the Flugtag event to the same city two years in a row, Mr. Weber said.)
Mr. Crawley, a Squirrel Hill resident, has covered more than 5,000 feature stories in “KD Country” since 1988. He’s also published multiple books of poetry, including “Cat Poems” (2005), “Dog Poems” (2007) and “Reading, Rhyming and ‘Rithmetic” (2010).
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Read the Tuned In Journal blog at post-gazette.com/tv. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook.
First Published: February 8, 2018, 9:00 p.m.
