Child Hit By Drone That Fell During Holiday Light Show In Orlando

ORLANDO, FL — A 7-year-old was hospitalized Saturday night after several drones fell from the sky during a holiday light show in Orlando, one of them hitting the boy, according to multiple reports.

The child, Alexander, underwent open-heart surgery on Sunday after being injured in the incident, WESH reported.

The 6 p.m. show at Orlando’s Lake Eola Park — the first light show planned at that location for Saturday night — “had technical difficulties,” the city’s public information manager, Andrea Otero, told People.

The Orlando Fire Department "was alerted to an individual who was reported to be injured during the show,” Otero said. “Fire personnel were already at the park, staffing an emergency tent that was approximately 50 feet away from the scene of the incident. Paramedics began to render aid as soon as they made contact with the individual."

Several small drones collided during the show, some falling into the crowd around 6:45 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration told NBC News.

A video shared to X, formerly Twitter, shows multiple drones falling during the show. A person can be heard saying, “Oh no! I don’t think they’re supposed to be falling.”

A child can also be heard asking, “Are they supposed to be falling?”

Swans in the lake also appeared to be disturbed by the falling drones.

The city’s second drone show of the evening, which was scheduled for 8 p.m., was canceled after the mishap.

“We were really excited to hear that they were having a drone show at Lake Eola,” the victim’s mother, Adriana Edgerton, told WFTV. “The light shows going on, and all of a sudden, one of the drones just lost it. Looked like a bird that was diving for fish.”

After the drones fell, her daughter found her son, who was born prematurely, “on the floor unconscious, blood coming out his face,” Edgerton said. “It was just the worst, because not only is he lying there like, you know, the EMTs are trying to help, but he was losing consciousness. His heart … kept stopping. He was stopping breathing.”

She added, “I was freaking out that I was going to lose my baby because he was losing consciousness.”