Fan falls from upper level of PPG Paints Arena at Penguins game

A fan was hospitalized after falling from the upper concourse at PPG Paints Arena during Monday night’s game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues.

The Penguins confirmed in a statement that a fan who attended the team’s 6-3 win over the Blues on Monday night fell from the upper level early in the first period. The person was treated by emergency personnel and then transferred to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Witnesses said they saw a man in a Penguins jersey tumble down several stairs between sections 201 and 234 before falling head first over the glass at the front of the sections. King Jemison of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was told by police that the fan suffered life-threatening injuries and was in critical condition.

“He was just coming down the stairs, and then he lost balance,” a fan who was sitting near the top of Section 234 told Jemison. “At first, I thought he was just having a joke because it was relatively slow. But he missed two or three (steps) in a row where he looked unbalanced, and then all of a sudden he was on the glass, sort of balanced.

“For like half a second, it was sort of ‘Is he going to go over or not?’ It was a split second, and then he just (fell).”

Another fan who was seated near the glass said the fan who fell “cartwheeled right over the railing.”

The fan who fell hit a person who was in the suite section below, but that person declined to be taken to the hospital.

Penguins star Sidney Crosby had a goal and 2 assists in the game and became the ninth player in NHL history to reach 1,700 points for his career. He said he felt uncomfortable talking about the achievement after learning about the fan who fell.

“We just found out that someone fell tonight, so it doesn’t feel right to be talking about points when we hear something like that,” Crosby told reporters. “We just found out, so obviously our thoughts and prayers are with that person and their family and hopefully they’re OK.”