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A 7-year-old was hospitalized after several drones unexpectedly fell from the sky during a holiday show in Orlando Saturday (December 21) night, WESH reports.
Dozens of lit-up drones flew in synchronization to form Christmas-themed shapes during the show at Lake Eola Park in the downtown area before multiple systems began dropping to the ground. The child was hit by one of the falling drones and transported to a nearby hospital, where he reportedly underwent open-heart surgery, his mother, Adriana Edgerton, told WESH.
“Everyone’s natural instinct was to duck and scatter, and before we realized it, my daughter found my son on the floor unconscious. He had blood coming out of his face,” Edgerton said.
Edgerton said her son was struck with a force that caused damage to his heart valves while "the blade cut his mouth, but there's an actual imprint of the drone in his chest."
Footage shared online shows multiple drones falling into the lake and onto the land, causing a chaotic scene.
“Are they supposed to be falling?” one child was heard asking in the background in a video shared by WKMG. A description of the 'Holiday Drone Show' shared by Orlando.gov states that there were two performances of the 15-minute "display of synchronized drones flying in formation to create beautiful holiday-themed designs in the night sky" scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
“Several small drones collided and fell into a crowd during a holiday drone show over (Lake Eola) in Orlando, Florida. The incident occurred around 6:45 p.m. local time on Saturday, Dec. 21,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement to WKMG, confirming it will investigate the incident.