1997 was a simpler time, but things didn't go too well at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. On November 27, 1997, winds reached up to 43 miles an hour, causing balloon handlers to struggle to control the giant balloons, resulting in several balloon casualties and actual human injuries.
It started with Barney's untimely death, which was caught on video and is some of the funniest sh** I've ever seen!
The screams all led up to the big purple dinosaur either exploding or getting cut open...I'm not really sure.
Then, things took a turn when the Pink Panther stopped floating and instead kinda just dragged along the road. A quick-thinking officer cut a hole through the balloons tale, which helped to stabilize it.
Things continued to get worse when a six-story-tall Cat in the Hat balloon hit a lamppost and broke off a horizontal metal bar. Skip to about 20 seconds in to see the disaster.
While the incidents may be funny to watch, they did cause several injuries. During the Cat in the Hat fiasco, which wound up being the last time he was invited to the parade, debris from the lamp post fell and hit two women. One of the women wound up in a coma for nearly a month and suffered a skull fracture as well as permanent brain damage.