A streamer broke her back in two places after jumping in a foam pit at TwitchCon

By Jody Macgregor
published about 18 hours ago

Multiple people were injured in the foam pit.

Update: A Lenovo representative told Rolling Stone that the company is "aware of the incidents of TwitchCon visitors who sustained injuries in the gladiator game soft foam pit at the Lenovo booth. The area has since been closed for any further use while we work with event organizers to look into the incidents."

Original story: After jumping into a foam pit during an event at TwitchCon San Diego over the weekend, Adriana Chechik(opens in new tab), a Twitch streamer with 802,000 followers, broke her back in two places(opens in new tab) and had to have metal support rods surgically inserted into it.

The Lenovo Legion booth hosted a Face Off(opens in new tab) event at which streamers tried to knock each other off raised podiums using padded poles, as in the show Gladiators. The platforms were placed in a foam pit, though perhaps the word "pit" is generous, as it looked like little more than a thin layer of foam cubes scattered across a kind of inflatable pool sitting on the convention's hard floor.

Though Chechik's injury was the most severe, she wasn't the only streamer hurt in the foam pit. LochVaness(opens in new tab) dislocated her knee and sprained her ankle after stepping off a podium following her victory(opens in new tab), and others have complained of back pain(opens in new tab) and difficulty walking(opens in new tab) following falls of their own.

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