DO NOT USE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF MR BOBBY TALBERT
AS HE HAS GIVEN ME AND ME ONLY PERMISSION AND FAILURE
TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN LEGAL ACTION.
PLEASE handle this with care... here are your answers.....
1. What went through your head when you heard Owen had died knowing that for want of a better word you were in charge of Owen?
I had worked in Fire/Rescue field before, I as well as the response people working on Owen knew he had passed right away.. there was no 6 minutes or an hour later.. He had gone instantly...The first thing that went through my head was ,this is not real, this could not have happened,Please let some miracle happen to bring him back..He wasn't just a wrestler.. he was a father and a husband, the wresting thing is just what he did... I've been in the stunt business for awhile and unfortunately accidents happen.... I do believe it is important to find why this happened or any other accident happens....To help prevent it from happening again... It was never discussed publicly BUT, Lewmar( snap shackle manufacturer) had 2 previous instances where there shackle had opened by accident resulting in injury yet they did nothing nor said anything about it....As far as a direct answer to your question: I went over what i had rigged to think of anyway it could have been better....I still to this day feel it was rigged as well as it could be......military special forces riggers looked it so did OSHA and the sports rigging association and a specialist by the name of Dr. Doom.(Dr. Randall Davidson) and all agreed that the rig was secure if the snap shackle hadn't released... William there is soooo much more but it would take for ever to write it all down...
2. I don’t know if you can mention it if you were, but was your company mentioned at all in the Court case?
I was hired by the WWF as Bobby Talbert at the time so they named me personally..There were originally 14 defendants....and the amount asked for was 500 million..
3. If you knew Owen didn’t want to do the stunt, did you have a conversation with him regarding not doing it?
This is a good question....Owen never conveyed to me that he didn't want to do it... Max Mini was suppose to be connected to Owen that night.. It was my call to not do the stunt with him because he showed signs of not understanding what we were doing.... Owen wasn't cocky about it at all BUT he did say he was cool with it because he had done something like this before... as far as the Owen not wanting to do it stories, this was completely foreign to me.....
4. As a person how did you find your dealings with Vince McMahon?
I hadn't met Vince until after the accident, Actually immediately after the accident... I was in the office with Vince ,Myself ,Vince's son and one other gentleman.. Vince had tears in his eyes and said It shouldn't have been Owen...he was a good person......he said he wanted to be the one to call Owen's wife..My feeling about Vince is that he WAS and IS a caring human being.... keep in mind it is entertainment we ALL have a character to portray.. if you break this character in public then your becomes hokey and you become a normal person not your character that the public wants to see.... Vince was completely sincere Backstage HE was DEVASTATED....
5. Apart from on the day May 23rd 1999 did you meet Owen before hand and talk him trough the procedure of the stunt?
I had only met Owen that day..
6. Not meaning to offend but had you done this kind of stunt before?
Yes I was involved with the same stunt, We rigged it for Sting many times for the WCW..
7. Again not meaning to offend but do you Feel responsible in anyway?
This doesn't offend, and i don't feel responsible BUT not a day goes by that i don't think about it and picture Owen Falling.. I vividly remember it like it was yesterday..... I do blame Lewmar.. It irritated me to find out they knew that they had failures in the past yet did nothing about it... there engineer had actually identified where the fault was happening.. it was during the machining of the trigger pin that holds the latch closed.. Had they done what there engineer wanted to do and redesign it this wouldn't have happened OR they also had a obligation to let the stunt community know that there had been known failures.. we were all using the units with confidence thinking they did what they were designed to do...
8. Has what happened changed either you as a person of has it effected the company in anyway?
It has changed me more than words can explain.. I've noticed changes in myself because of it..It changed my relationship with my girlfriend at the time....we broke up and she said i was never the same person after the accident... it was an few years of feeling like i was gonna throw up everytime the phone rang and i could tell it was something to do with the case... I lost faith in the justice system and the media... so many lies were told so much mud was thrown before the "real" case ever got underway.. there were crooked police lab technicians involved and a lying cheating Laywer.. The judge was good at catching them and rep remanding them.when i had to do depostions there was cameras in the room at all times and a judge and my lawyers and WWF lawyers and the harts lawyers and get this ...the Harts lawyers Rob & Rob had to bring there own lawyers to keep an eye on them because they had been caught with some witness tampering, it was such a mess........my competitors took this and ran with it, Going to everyone i would work for and saying oh he's not safe ,look what happened, so I had to go after them with lawyers as well... I spent my entire life savings defending myself in court....the first month was $52,000.00 US. in lawyers fees.This accident has caused mental anguish on all sides... this answer is one that would take a lot of time and typing.... so hit a few points...
9. I have heard that as Owen fell he was calling to a referee to get out of the way. Can you verify if this is true?
This is false I was yelling as he fell cause there were people in the ring under him... Owen didn't say anything.... and wasn't yelling like someone else claimed... Owen was spinning spread eagle side over side doing summersaults in the air..