Sam had been in the “Beast Games” group for just a few hours when he hit the disaster.
It was his first day as an independent crew member in the Toronto group of the new game show from YouTuber Mrbeast. He was helping to break down the labeled set of Beast City – a miniature city with a basketball field, tables, cabins and a tower on the north side.
He wandered inside and outside the props set as he wrapped the cables. At one point, he entered a section of the tower-a giant quadruple rectangular structure that seemed to be made of concrete.
When he came out of the tower, he crashed and hit his head. He could not move his arm and felt a severe shoulder pain.
He began to cough with blood. “I don’t want to die,” recalled a witness saying.
Sam did not know it at the time, but the workers had dismantled the tower above it, and a displaced section had fallen and cut its left shoulder. He spent eight days in the hospital, where doctors removed his spleen and performed reconstruction operations on his shoulder. He suffered a contusion of the lungs, a hemotorax and damage to his ribs, scapula, back and clavicle, medical records show. He said it took months of physical therapy to regain the use of his arm and that his surgeon said he could not return to work by spring as soon as possible.
An executive manufacturer visited him at the hospital and provided an envelope containing the Dobordash and Uber gift cards reaching approximately $ 1,000, he said. A person close to production said it was something he would seek and that he was constantly offered other forms of support. Sam said he did not remember looking for gift cards and was underestimated. “Group accidents happen, but that seemed preventable,” he told Business Insider in an interview. He demanded that Business Insider use only his first name to defend his identity, which is known for bi.
“If it were really well organized or well -communicated, it would not happen in the first place,” he said. He said he wanted Mrbeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, to publicly accept the incident and provide something like it would not happen again.
At the beginning of August, the New York Times reported claims from an anonymous dozen racing of inappropriate living conditions and security issues while filming a promotional video in Las Vegas. Five contestants submitted documents in September seeking the status of class action against Donaldson and production companies after the show, accusing them of “hazardous circumstances and conditions” in the Las Vegas group. According to an internet compilation, the status of the case is pending, with the next hearing on March.
Some crew members told Rolling Stone that the conditions set in Toronto had improved, but that the work environment was “loose” for sure.
After contacting the YouTuber team to comment on the story, Sam said a representative from production contacted it, saying they were “here to support me and provided me with some things I could not share.” He refused to share further details.
A ‘bloody’ scene in set
YouTuber Mrbeast in a promotional photo for his performance of reality competition, “Beast Games”. Prime video
“Beast Games” is a series of reality with 10 organized and executive episodes produced by Donaldson. It was filmed from late August by September in a closed plane construction facility and the Blink49 company was produced. The show included 1,000 contestants competing in strange and dangerous challenges to win $ 5 million. Its episodes were published in Amazon Prime Video from December to February, and Amazon said it was the second most watched series of 2024. A representative from Amazon Mgm Studi refused to comment on the story. Blink49 did not respond to comment requests.
The first and last day of Sam’s work in “Beast Games” was September 11th. Bi shared what happened that day based on interviews with Sam, 24 and the other two members of the “Beast Games” crew who proved or were aware of the incident, along with medical records, email and other documents.
Tower in set was covered Approximately 8-by-8-foot wood squares made to look like concrete, said a supervisor who was also a “Beast Games” production assistant. The squad was about 4 or 5 inches thick and seemed to weigh a couple of hundred pounds. At the show, the tower was used for games like throwing a ball in a large cup on the first floor and catching a ball that fell from the holes to the ceiling. The structure appeared bold, surviving a record storm on July 16 that flooded the set.
Around 11:30, Sam said he was not including a “troubled jungle” in the basement of the tower. Some of the cables were still attached to the light matches outside the tower, so he came out of the west, he said. “There was nothing to block it. There was no dedicated road. There was nothing to show it at all,” he said.
At the same time, workers were joining the squares in a boom lifter, removing them from their steel frames, lowering them on the floor, two people said in place that day. At one point, the crew appeared to disconnect a section on the third floor without connecting the attached boom, the supervisor said. That free square fell to Sam.
“The third floor square had moved and pushed,” said the supervisor, who sought to remain anonymous for fear of damaging his career. “I saw him fall. I knew immediately this was really bad – this was one of those moments where things change.”
He said he rushed to the Sam’s side and “immediately was radio for a doctor”, describing a “bloody” scene. “I remember when I was near Sam looking up and looking at someone’s head coming out of the empty hole,” where the square had been, he said.
A person close to production said Sam was not using the “set” road to get out of the tower and that it was technically a banned area. Sam and the supervisor said there were no indications on the first floor that he had done work on them.
“I don’t remember seeing a pillar, a protected area or someone who tells us they were moving walls,” Sam said. He and the supervisor said they had taken the same path under boom raising several times after they would begin their shifts at 8am Sam said he was wearing normal clothing for a construction site, including a strong hat and steel boots.
An ongoing investigation
An ambulance arrived on stage within minutes and hurried Sam in the emergency room of the Sunnybrook Health Science Center, which has the largest trauma center in Canada.
Production crews stopped working for the day while the Labor Ministry of Ontario – the Canada Agency that protects the workers – and the police visited the site to investigate.
Sam said his family contacted numerous lawyers in September about any legal action they could take and told that he could not sue his employer because he received a payment from the Security and Insurance Board, which provides insurance benefits to injured workers.
CBC reported three months later, in December, that the Ontario Ministry of Labor was investigating an “industrial accident” in which a crew member “was injured by the fall of wood on September 11 in the group”.
Sam said his latest contact with the Labor Agency was in January. A ministry spokesman told BI that he had been informed of an incident on September 11 in North York, in which a worker suffered injuries caused by a part of the falling wood and that it issued a “demand” for production companies not to disturb the incident. The spokesman said the agency would not provide further information because the investigation was continuing.
Sam said he was concerned about his work prospects. He had wanted to be part of the film industry since he was 10 years old and for the first time without “Terminator 2” and “Indiana Jones”. But his damage has made him scared to turn into a group.
Sam told him that more than anything, he wanted his incident to publicly admit and be fully investigated.
“I still can’t use my left arm as if I were able,” Sam said. “At the moment, I can only raise 2 pounds with him. I am working with physio to hope that I will return it to normal. I lost my spleen, so I am also immunocompromised.”
He told him that seeing that he would take responsibility, in particular, he would say a lot. He said Donaldson is not “the company or the people who deceive the wall”, but he is the “face and captain of the team”.