What's the worst thing you have ever witnessed first-hand happen on live tv?

[MyCheeryPearlTraybake]

For me it would have to be Christian Eriksson collapsing at the euros in 2021

9/11

Tommy Cooper dying on stage

The attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. I had previously taken my daughter to the hairdresser there and left her for a while.

That second plane hitting on 9/11. Up to that point everyone (on the news I saw, at least) thought it must have been a tragic accident, like the small aircraft that had previously crashed into one of the towers. When the second plane hit it was immediately clear that it must have been coordinated. And nobody really thought the two towers were going to collapse until they did. I was pregnant at the time and remember the sheer horror that I was bringing a child into such a cruel world.

Watched live - Challenger! I was very young but my dad loved space so we watched all the launches.. I remember him just shell-shocked, in his chair!

Aftermath - the images of the Herald of Free Enterprise, on her side in the channel the evening it sank. We went to France, by ferry, about two weeks later and I had screaming nightmares and terrors in the run-up and for weeks after. But the image of the ship, on her side - terrifies me to this day!

Iranian embassy seige was riveting to watch as a child. I have since read more about it and it was pretty awful for those trapped there.
9/11 obviously.
but also Hillsborough. I remember it clearly, and also having it used as an interview question for a journalism job I went for.

9/11.
Farenheit 9/11 was an amazing documentary about the lead up to it.
Recently, the Trump/Zelensky white house ambush. Frightening.

I forgot about Grenfell, waking up to seeing the burning building live on TV.

Our government taking active part in a genocide

My son was 9 days old, I genuinely feared for him in the future.
I nearly lost my mind, it felt apocalyptic. A very strange worrying time.

In real life, a tiny baby (I'd say 5 or 6lb) being dropped by its mum when she got off a train. It fell between the train and platform onto the tracks. The station staff were brilliant. One ran down to the driver to say not to move, one was lowered between the train and platform by two colleagues so he could pick the baby up.

I've no idea what happened but a young mum trying to get a pram and baby off the train on her own :(

On TV 911.

9/11.

My husband was in the SAS. He trained all the men who went in and retired two weeks before...
The day of of 9/11 was the first day I had been shopping on my own since my husband died. A friend had asked me to pick her up something and I called round to drop it off before she did the school run. Her three year old was watching the telly and I asked my friend why was he watching such a horrific film... She then said it was actually happening in America. I was so shocked...

9-11 aside (I don't see how anyone's ever going to say anything else topped the shock of that, unless of course they knew someone involved in another disaster), Hillsborough and the Challenger disaster.

Funny how I remember those, but not Lockerbie. But then that didn't happen on live TV, as such.

Second plane hitting the twin towers. There's nothing that has ever been like 9/11 since. Just watching the news in those days.

I was driving and heard it on the radio, genuinely believed that it was a radio drama.

Seeing Tommy Cooper have a heart attack on live TV was pretty bad.

Second tower on 9/11.

Before that, the death of Ayrton Senna.

Apart from 9/11 I'd probably say the Japanese tsunami. While having breakfast we watched a news report showing footage of cars desperately trying to drive away from water rapidly covering fields and roads. It didn't look real because it was so shocking.

Hillsborough 😞😞😞

Also that furniture shop that was set on fire in the riots in Croydon I think. All live streamed on the BBC. All the looting, fires etc was really shocking.

9/11
I came home with the kids from nursery and couldn't understand what had happened
All the tv was showing was a blue sky

The Manchester bombing-ds was staying with a friend in friends flat nearby
I got a message saying 'mum,do not panic and do not turn on the tv'
So of course I did both

Grenfell-id just moved house and turned on the TV that morning
I remember thinking 'what else is going to happen?'

One day at work,I was standing just looking out of the window
I saw a bloke go to cross the road,stop for half a second in the middle of the road and started to run the second half
A car hit him,he flew into the air,his trainer came off and he hit the ground
He was dead
What really disgusted me was my main manager had caught the whole thing on cctv and was inviting her favourites to go see the footage over and over again while slagging the poor bloke off (the rest of us just had to swallow it back and carry on working)
i had to run upstairs and get all the customers downstairs as most where gawping out of the windows while chomping on their burgers-some where even standing on the tables to get a better look-some point blank refused to go downstairs as 'I'm enjoying watching what's happening'
The main boss went mental at me for not clearing upstairs of customers in 5 seconds flat (once she'd watched the footage enough to satisfy herself)
I'll never forget seeing him in the air and again on the ground with two random men trying so hard to give him cpr with no luck

I watched Hillsborough unfold as my dad was watching Grandstand. Horrifying.
And I remember Challenger blowing up but I’m not convinced I saw that live - it’s possible as it was a big deal because Christa Mcauliffe was a teacher and it was late morning Florida time so it’s possible I was watching Newsround.

But for sheer horror over hours nothing will ever be like 9/11. Very unusually I was home that day and even more unusually I had the tv on when the first plane hit. So I watched the whole thing, from the first reports of the first plane through to the Pentagon crash and the final flight into the field. I’ll never forget that day.

I was at university finishing my masters and the postgrads used to gather to eat lunch and watch Neighbours. It went straight from the credits to Breaking News.

I also wanted to add the killing of Lee rigby, I remember watching the killer afterwards covered in blood ranting at the camera and it shook me to the core, I cried and cried for Lee, it was so senseless.

I often think about this. 20+ years ago, instances on live tv that would be considered rape / schedule abuse.
One that sticks out to me was the first episode of Britain's next top model or something where they forced the candidates to get completely naked and model sexual activity with each other. I was majorly shocked at the time and some of the models were clearly traumatised snd bullied into it.

Another instance was when a flatmate was watching Graham Norton. It was the early days of webcams and he got a young woman somewhere in the world to insert a cucumber in her vagina on air while the audience laughed.

I'm still appalled.

Challenger
9/11
Hillborough
Omagh bomb
shankill road bomb
Iranian embassy siege
Herald of free enterprise sinking