It seems a video is making the rounds on Internet E-Mail. It looks as if it is in a hardware store with a female clerk at a cash register. Unseen by the clerk, a floor panel is lifted behind her so that someone can climb the stairs down to the basement. Unaware of the gaping hole in the floor, the woman turns around and steps right into the hole, hitting her arm and leg on the way down.
This seems a little contrived to me. It seems www.snopes.com has no information on this. Have any “Dopers” seen this video and/or know if it is the real thing?
Looks real to me. Go to the Snopes Mesage Board and look in the category “Is this picture real?” In the thread titled “Watch Your Step”, the Snopes denziens are discussign it and therer’s a link to the video.
I think I’ve seen it. It’s behind a bar in a pub actually, and the stairs are down to the pub cellar. Supposedly taken by a CCTV camera behind the bar.
If real then someone has a lot of Health & Safety explaining to do.
I saw it, looks real to me (although the woman does disappear rather quickly once she goes down, poor thing).
Genius place to put a big opening in the floor.
Most pubs in the UK and Ireland have such an entrance to the cellar behind the bar.
Here is the link to the specific discussion on Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=000523;p=1
Looks like the vast majority of people at SDMB and snopes think it is real. I still remain skeptical because - there’s lots of clever people on the Internet at Snopes (and especially on the SDMB). How come no one has yet to say - oh that was in the Dublin Gazette or the New York Daily News or on a local TV news broadcast ?
Someone had to be the first to E-Mail that video. Did the first person sending it just say - “Hey look at this?” - no details, explanation, etc?
That is what seems strange to me.
Yeah, I got this last week, and have watched it a few times since. It looks so painful.
Looks real to me, which proves nothing, but…maybe someone got a hold of the CC tape in order to use it for a claim in some sort of Work Comp case or something, and then it got into the “wrong hands” and went on from there?
It’s a HARD fall too - looks like the camera actually shakes a little bit when she hits.
I don’t see any reason to believe it’s NOT real. It looks 100% authentic; I see nothing about it to suggest it’s faked.
Now, maybe they set it up and it’s a stunt, but that’s one hell of a good stunt.
I’m not sure why anyone would fake this, it’s not that interesting.
It’s a clip that was shown on ‘You’ve Been Framed’ - a British show that has Camcorder footage of people falling over a lot and shite like that. Hey, look like a prat and we’ll pay you a couple of hundred quid.
It was originally shown about 5-6 years ago, IIRC - The barmaid who fell down the cellar appeared on the show.
It was shown again a couple of weeks back.
Oh yeah, as to why nobody (but me) has said they’ve seen the clip? Might have something to do with You’ve Been Framed having a reputation for only being watched by idiots (like me).
i don’t know, it doesn’t look real to me. 
…and me. I saw it too.
Promise you won’t tell anyone.
[QUOTE=Revtim]
I’m not sure why anyone would fake this, it’s not that interesting.[/QUOTE
Bet it’s interesting to a lawyer.
Uhhhhhhhh…
linky-poo?
It’s video clip #3 right here.
Some of the older ones in Chicago do too. Innertown Pub has one.
I’ve seen that clip many times. All on national TV in the UK. (various caught on camera type programs) Quite scary.
This reminds me of a time I saw footage of a big wedding party in progress while the floor of the room they were in just collapsed. All the people vanished into darkness. It was quite shocking. It was on morning news. The censors must have made a late decision because I never saw it, or the story related to it ever again.
Ouch. That looked painful. I don’t see any reason to believe it wasn’t real. If somebody had staged it, I would think they’d have made an effort to make the quality a bit better. Damn she went down hard.
Kal Thanks for locating the source even at the expense of people knowing you watch that show. (I live in the USA so I have never heard of it nor seen it).
Even if the fall is real, doesn’t it seem as if the woman in that video had been “set up”? I know that here in “the colonies” we had a show called “America’s Funniest Home Videos” which became so popular (and offered a $25,000 prize for best video of the week), that everyone was trying to get their videos on the show. Eventually they made a 30 minute special saying what they did NOT want - set up stunts; intentionally hurting people; etc.
I remember one clip where they showed someone chainsawing a tree that could easily be seen to be directly in the line of a parked truck. Big surprise - the tree fell on the truck. Wow what an “accident” (nudge nudge).
I would hate to think someone would set up the woman in that “pub video” but you never know.
Lobsang I saw that wedding party video too. I believe it was in Israel many years ago and I think the people fell quite a distance and many of them died.