MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 A circus performer was accidentally shot in the neck by an arrow during a performance at a county fair in upstate New York, police and organizers said.<\/p>\n
It happened Friday night at the Orange County Fair in Middletown, northwest of New York City, according to state police.<\/p>\n
Ana Daza Tavera, 42, and Edwin Cuervo Rangel, 38, a married couple from Waukesha, Wisconsin, had been performing their crossbow sharpshooting act when she accidentally struck him in the neck with an arrow as he held up a foam target, police said.<\/p>\n
Cuervo Rangel was airlifted to a hospital in stable condition, and the circus was canceled for the night.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Jackson, the ringmaster at Circus Murcia, said Monday that Cuervo Rangel was luckily struck on the side of his neck in a spot with mostly soft tissue and no major blood vessels.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo blood leaking out. There was a little around the hole where the arrow went in, kind of like getting your ear pierced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cuervo Rangel was released from the hospital Saturday after the arrow was safely removed and he received stitches, Jackson said.<\/p>\n
He’ll need time to heal before he can resume performing but was \u201cwalking around, talking, eating, enjoying life,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
Circus Murcia said Cuervo Rangel is expected to make a full recovery as it requested privacy for him and his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cSafety has always been our top priority and we would like to emphasize that while this was a tragic accident, it is an isolated incident and there was and is no danger to the general public and audiences,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The circus returned to its regular schedule of three shows a day on Saturday, minus the crossbow act.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 A circus performer was accidentally shot in the neck by an arrow during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[157,116101,417,9,116181,24,55,54,56,16167,3980,421],"class_list":["post-307038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-entertainment","tag-fairs-and-festivals","tag-general-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-circus-performer-shot-arrow","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-oddities","tag-shootings","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}