Well, this is something you don’t see every day.
Imagine you’re a young armed forces musician playing your heart out before a live audience. Then imagine an ax plunges deep into your arm.
That’s exactly what happened to one unlucky cadet who was performing back in 2015 on “Fox & Friends.”
Jeff Prosperie, a West Point graduate and lead drummer with the Hellcats, a division of the U.S. Army’s West Point Band, was playing the drum behind a target when co-host Pete Hegseth attempted to stick an ax in the bulls-eye. As you can see below, it didn’t quite work out:
OK, there’s being negligent and there’s being stupid. And that accident right there was stupidly negligent.
What kind of setup was that? Why would you throw an ax at a target that has people behind it? And why is a Fox host – an obvious novice when it comes to circus stunts – screwing around like that?
So many questions on the lack of wisdom behind the segment. But now it looks like Jeff Prosperie is going to try to take the conservative network to the cleaners. According to the Daily Mail, he’s claiming to have suffered from “pain, disfigurement and loss of bodily function” from the incident. He also accuses the network of acting “with reckless disregard for the safety of others” for placing him and his fellow bandmates behind the target. And now he wants recompense.
It’s hard to blame him. The stunt was poorly conceived and anyone who thought more than two minutes about the setup could have seen there was a chance of injury.
But it’s best to let the courts settle this matter. After all, Fox isn’t exactly a stranger to lawsuits brought by aggrieved parties (RELATED: After High-Profile Departures, Fox News Hit With Racial Discrimination Lawsuit).
Perhaps the hosts of “Fox & Friends” will think more carefully the next time they do an ax-throwing segment.
