Trophy Eyes are being sued by the fan left partially paralysed by a stage diving incident at one of their shows.
Earlier this year, a 24-year-old fan of the Australian punk band was left partially paralysed after frontman John Floreani stage-dived on top of her during a gig in New York. During a gig at Mohawk Place in Buffalo on April 30, he had jumped into the crowd and left fan Bird Piché with serious injuries which required emergency surgery.
Footage from the event then circulated on social media, seemingly showing the precise moment Floreani leapt into the crowd and seemingly landed directly on top of Piché. In May, Buffalo TV station WKBW (via New York Post) reported they had suffered a “catastrophic spinal cord injury”.
The band later released a statement and said they were “truly heartbroken”, and shared a GoFundMe campaign link to raise money for Piché. “She has a long recovery ahead and will need all the help she can get,” the campaign description read.
https://t.co/mzqqCkgidR pic.twitter.com/vY9OPl6CcJ
— Trophy Eyes (@trophyeyesmusic) May 3, 2024
Trophy Eyes’ original statement said that the incident had “shaken us all to our core”, adding: “Please, keep Bird in your thoughts. We remain in close contact with them and will expand on this as new news arrives.”
In a statement shared with WKBW, a general manager of Mohawk Place said crowd-surfing was forbidden and that signs were posted “everywhere”.
Now, Piché has filed a lawsuit against Trophy Eyes, Floreani, Mohawk Place, and promoter After Dark Entertainment, LLC. As WGRZ reports (via Stereogum) the suit claims that the defendants caused her injury through negligence, as they failed to protect her from “unsafe and/or dangerous conditions.”
Trophy eyes are one of my faves and I think loud and clear: Bird is right. That’s lifelong disability in the US, it’s no joke https://t.co/nzBoenOlAN
— Aletta (@captainale_) December 18, 2024
Shortly after Piché’s injury, she and her family told NBC that she’s regained some use of her arms and legs but not her fingers or toes, and there’s been no update on her recovery following that. The lawsuit asks for “a sum of money which exceeds jurisdictional limits of all lower courts together with the costs and disbursement of this action.”
As previously reported by Stereogum, Trophy Eyes have a history of incidents relating to stagediving. After an Atlanta show in 2023, a fan criticised them for “encouraging mosh pits and crowd surfing”, to which the band replied in the comments: “fuck you”.
