9/26/2021- 9:13 p.m.
Ohio — At haunted houses, the blood, knives, and spooky monsters are fake, but the frightful fun became all too real for one Brook Park family after one of the actors got a little too into character at a haunted house in Berea last weekend.
Berea officers were called to the 7 Floors of Hell haunted house at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds at about 8:15 p.m. Saturday for a call of a male stabbed in the foot, the report states.
Officers spoke to staff members and learned that an 11-year-old boy there with a family friend suffered a cut on his left big toe.
Witnesses told officers that one of the roaming outside actors at the haunted house was using a large Bowie knife as a prop to scare people. They said the 22-year-old actor, identified as Christopher Pogozelski, was scraping the knife on the ground in front of them, then began to stab the ground at the boy’s feet when it went through his Croc-style shoe and cut his left foot.
A bowie knife that was confiscated from a haunted house actor Saturday after he accidentally stabbed an 11-year-old boy in the toe, according to a Berea police report.Karen Bednarski told News 5 the 11-year-old boy is her son, Frank.
She said he went to the 7 Floors of Hell haunted house last Saturday with his sister and family friends with hopes of having some good, scary fun.But she says things turned just plain scary when they encountered one of the actors outside.
“He walked up to my son and he was holding the knife and his intentions were to scare him, but my son responded to him by saying, ‘That’s fake. I’m not scared,’” said Bednarski.
That’s when Bednarski said Pogozelski began stabbing the ground with a large Bowie knife, but then got too close and stabbed the knife through Frank’s Croc sandal, slicing the side of his big toe.
Bednarski said one of the adults with Frank called her and then she called police.“I’m highly upset,” said Bednarski.But she wasn’t just upset about the cut on Frank’s toe, it’s how she said the staff responded afterwards.
“They just kept saying accidents happen, accidents happen,” said Bednarski.Staff at the haunted house applied first aid to the toe, which was bleeding slightly, the report states.
Bednarski claims staff initially denied first aid.”They told me that they were not certified to administer first aid,” said Bednarski.
Officers confiscated the knife from the actor, who told police he had brought it from home, and he was using it instead of the provided prop knives.
He admitted to officers that “using the knife was not a good idea and that the injury was an accident,” the report states. The knife was confiscated and taken as property in connection with the incident.
