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Telly addicts

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

382 replies

MyCheeryPearlTraybake · 26/05/2025 18:10

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

OP posts:
CocoSpaniel · 26/05/2025 19:53

9/11 (I had a day off work and was newly pregnant, and like others I was terrified it was the start of something much bigger)

Challenger

The Japanese tsunami, although it wasn't obvious at first that what they were showing us on TV was killing people at that moment. At first it just looked like a lot of water and debris flooding in, but then later looking back at clips you could see that the houses and buildings being swept away were not empty, this wasn't something happening to areas that had already been safely evacuated.

Smudgeis13 · 26/05/2025 19:54

Aberfan. The immediate aftermath. Reporters sticking microphones into people’s faces as they searched for their children.

notificationstalksettings · 26/05/2025 19:54

All of the afore mentioned but something that really shocked me, in a very different way obviously, when I saw it was seeing Madonna falling over at the Brits, It was was so surreal and I couldn't quite believe it had happened.

UName38 · 26/05/2025 19:55

Nothing live - it was still shocking seeing 9/11 minutes after, Hillsborough - can’t remember if it was live, I was a bit young but they showed more than I think they would now on the news.

I didn’t remember it was the sea empress but have vivid memories of birds covered in oil spill in a harbour.

ChocolateCinderToffee · 26/05/2025 19:55

I think Hillsborough for me. I was at work for 9/11. I saw the immediate aftermath of Hillsborough on tv.

GetOffTheCounter · 26/05/2025 19:56

marcopront · 26/05/2025 19:00

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.

9/11 of course. And Westgate Mall- I had been there the previous week eating in the food court.

NotsosunnyShropshire · 26/05/2025 19:58

9/11
Bradford football stadium fire.
Waco.

GetOffTheCounter · 26/05/2025 19:59

For 9/11 I was living abroad in a former Soviet state. I got back from a really fun evening that was largely populated by US Army personnel. I was brushing my teeth with the radio on and heard about a plane going into the twin Towers and thought 'well that's a bit strange'. Then turned on BBC world and watched it all in frozen shock.

The next day i went to work and the entire town I lived in had been emptied of US military. They were just ... gone.

Miffsmum · 26/05/2025 20:01

9/11 definitely

but also a few years ago online, a video of a raccoon skinned for the fur industry and thrown on a heap of similar tortured creatures but still alive.
it still haunts me

DaringlyDizzy · 26/05/2025 20:02

Someone started a live video on social media recently. It was to ask if their cat needed medical attention. It had given birth a while ago. The cat was dying, the reason it was 'unable to meow' was because it was drawing last breaths, ears were pale, gums blueish white. It died during the live. It has kept me up since.

BashfulClam · 26/05/2025 20:02

MemorableTrenchcoat · 26/05/2025 18:17

9/11. Apart from that, Challenger.

Exactly the same.

HornyHornersPinger · 26/05/2025 20:03

Like many others 9/11. Specifically the 2nd plane hitting live on TV just after all the channels had switched over to the news. Then all the people hanging out the windows and jumping 😪

Spooky2000 · 26/05/2025 20:04

9/11 and 7/7. I'd been in those very stations (like thousands of others) and thought there but for the grace of God go I.

I don't think it was on TV live, but the Kings Cross fire really bothered me.

I remember the Bradford fire and Hillsborough though. And the siege in the Iranian embassy. Challenger was awful as were the 'jokes' that came out afterwards. The boxing day tsunami in Thailand...

The thing that has always stuck with me though not on TV was the James Bulger murder. I was really upset about that and used to phone my sister to talk about it 😢

lifeonmars100 · 26/05/2025 20:05

All the things already mentioned but especially 7/7 as I have family in London and 2 of them took the tube to work and used the route that that the bomb was on. Not being able to get through to London on the phone was so scary as the lines were so busy. The relief when I found out that everyone was safe was immense but I felt so sad for people who lost loved ones

midlifeattheoasis · 26/05/2025 20:06

Tianamen Square was pretty shocking

Redheadedstepchild · 26/05/2025 20:06

All of the above and I don't know whether this really counts as seeing it live on TV exactly but I had just come in very late at night from a baby sitting job the night Princess Diana died, switched on the television and the coverage had just started.

Obviously, I couldn't just go to bed after that. I watched the narrative progress through the early hours of the morning, switching from the BBC to ITV and back again, over and over.

At first, she was fine. Cuts and bruises. No need to worry. Then she was a bit worse. Then...

I distinctly remember Matthew Parris being inyerviewed on the BBC at about 4am blurting out something like, "She's dead. I'm telling you, she's dead." then him being bundled off set or the cameras quickly switching to something else.

I don't think his career ever really recovered after that ten second outburst. I've looked for that clip several times over the years on the internet but it seems to have disappeared. I don't think I imagined it.

I think it must be some kind of treasonous act to declare a member of the Royal Family to have died before an official announcement.

In any case, that was not obviously the most important aspect of the tragedy but it stayed with me. Maybe it was just an example of, "Well, he's only saying what we're all thinking."

magicstar1 · 26/05/2025 20:06

The Bradford Stadium fire. My dad was watching it live and told me to leave the room. I ended up watching from the doorway and it's always stayed with me.

9/11 too. I was in America oh holidays and my mother called my hotel to let me know what was happening. We were an hour behind so still asleep. It was awful to watch, and we ended up having to stay an extra week as our flights home should have been from New York.

FluffytheGoldfish · 26/05/2025 20:08

Many have been mentioned but also Kings Cross fire, Piper Alpha and Lockerbie.

House0fBamboo · 26/05/2025 20:08

Bradford and Hillsborough weren't broadcast live. TV programmes did switch to coverage of Hillsborough and ITV cameras were at Valley Parade to cover the match for a programme later.

Most horrific I've seen is Stephen Ladd - again not broadcast live but filmed as live at the time and Heysel - I still can't believe they still played the match.

evtheria · 26/05/2025 20:08

9/11 second plane

AutumnLover1989 · 26/05/2025 20:08

9/11
The Grenfell tower fire. GMTV or Daybreak whatever they were called then, filming the fire live and zooming in at people banging on their windows 😔

GingerPaste · 26/05/2025 20:09

9/11.

Tryonemoretime · 26/05/2025 20:09

For some reason, I can be really poorly but hardly ever have a temperature. On 9/11 I was really ill and sleeping on the sofa with the TV on. I surfaced and saw film footage of the planes hurtling into the towers and thought I was watching a film or I'd actually got a temperature and was hallucinating....it took me ages before it realised that this had really happened.

Lobsterteapot · 26/05/2025 20:09

I saw the commentary of the Bradford recently it was absolutely one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Men on fire running towards the pitch, dreadful.

Grammarnut · 26/05/2025 20:10

I - and my DS - saw Challenger explode. We had turned on to watch the launch as DS space obsessed at the time.

Also 9/11 and the Grenfell fire.