Stage backdrop COLLAPSES on Carly Fiorina in front of screaming crowd – but she brushes it off and jokes 'I'm plenty tough enough to be commander-in-chief'
- Fiorina was taking part in a Q&A with female business leaders in Texas
- As she spoke the backdrop of metal poles and curtains suddenly fell down
- Despite crashing into the audience nobody appeared to have been injured
- Fiorina joked that the accident proved she is tough enough to be president
Carly Fiorina narrowly escaped injury Sunday evening after a stage backdrop collapsed on her during a campaign event in San Antonio, Texas.
Fiorina, who is ranked third in the Republican presidential nomination race alongside Marco Rubio, was taking part in a Q&A session for female business owners when the accident happened.
Midway through the event at the Marriott Hotel the stage backdrop, made up of curtains held in place with metal poles, dropped forward to cries from the crowd.
Carly Fiorina (pictured centre), the current third-placed candidate in the Republican presidential race, has narrowly avoided being injured this evening after a backdrop fell on her during a campaign event
Ms Fiorina was taking part in a Q&A session with female business leaders in San Antonio, Texas, when curtains supported by metal poles collapsed forward and into the crowd
Fortunately the poles missed both Fiorina and those sitting toward the front of the audience, allowing her to carry on with the event afterward.
After the curtains fell, one crowd member shouted out 'Trump!', seeming to accuse the current Republican frontrunner of causing the accident, according to the Texas Tribune.
However Fiorina quickly brushed the comment aside, replying 'Trump, Carson, it could have been lots of people.'
She also joked about it showing how she was tough enough to be president, before taking more questions from the audience.
'Ladies, I'm plenty tough enough to be commander-in-chief,' she said.
Fiorina is one of the star risers of the Republican race, with voters overlooking established political candidates in favor of those with backgrounds outside Washington.
While she was relegated to the lower end of the field during the first Republican debate, standing alongside the likes of Rick Perry, who has now dropped out, she burst into the top end of the pack after a confident, assured display.
Her business background, as the former head of Hewlett-Packard, has clearly helped – with former favorite Scott Walker being forced to bow out.
Fortunately nobody was injured during the collapse, during which somebody shouted out 'Trump!' in an apparent attempt to pin the blame on him, though Fiorina brushed that comment aside
Fiorina is one of the star-risers of the Republican race after an assured first debate performance in the bottom half of the pack saw her smash into the upper echelons the second time around (file image)
Fiorina's popularity is also largely drawn from her seeming ability to take on Trump and come out as his equal, something other candidates have either failed at, or seem unwilling to do.
Second place contender Ben Carson, another anti-establishment figure, has disagreed with Trump in the past, but the pair have also made a point of not allowing the argument to become bitter – sometimes shaking hands or awkwardly high-fiving after exchanging comments.
Fiorina was widely considered to have 'won' the second debate, thanks in large part to her putdown of Trump over comments he made about her 'face,' asking 'would anyone vote for that?'.
Trump had tried to play off the remarks as a joke, or a take on her 'persona' rather than on her looks. But when Fiorina was asked to respond, she simply replied: 'I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.'
Hillary Clinton also narrowly avoided being hit by a falling backdrop earlier this month after the curtains collapsed on to a waiting lectern at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
That moment, and Trump's awkward response in calling her 'beautiful,' became the most tweeted about event of the GOP debate, second only to Fiorina's comments about a series of gruesome Planned Parenthood abortion videos.
It is also not the first time that a political candidate in this year's race has nearly been injured by a piece of falling scenery.
Back at the start of this month, Hillary Clinton was moments away from taking to the stage during a campaign event at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when the backdrop fell down.
On that occasion the metal pole across the top of the curtains came crashing down the the podium, knocking over an American flag and landing where Clinton would have been speaking.
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