Burning Man Attendee Fractures Spine After Falling From Art Installation

A woman is recovering from a fractured spine and rib after falling off a structure at the 2024 edition of Burning Man.

Rachael Gingery on Saturday fell roughly 20 feet from an art installation resembling a sinking ship, which was, along with a 100-foot serpent, part of a display called "Naga & The Captainess."

In a post shared to Facebook, she says she climbed a ladder into the structure's crow's nest before attempting to slide across a tilted pole, around which attendees could wrap their legs. However, the weight of her backpack and coat inverted her body to the underside of the pole, forcing her to flip and ultimately lose her grip.

The next thing Gingery remembers, she said, was "waking up on the ground surrounded by medics and unable to move."

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"I was told that I was convulsing immediately after impact and looping my thoughts before returning to consciousness after a few minutes," Gingery wrote, adding that she doesn't blame the structure's developers. "I remember laying on the ground feeling shocks of pain course through my body and being unable to move as I was loaded into an ambulance."

From there, Gingery says she spent over 16 hours in triage in a medical tent on the playa before an ambulance transported her to the trauma unit of a Reno-area hospital. Doctors there treated her for contusions of her lung and spleen as well as the fractured spine and rib.

Gingery called the ordeal "one of the scariest experiences" of her life but remains in good spirits, referring to her outing in Black Rock City as her "best burn yet." She says she's expected to heal within the next six to eight weeks.

This year's Burning Man took place from August 25th to September 2nd.