Beyoncé Knowles already knew her fans were irreplaceable. Unfortunately, she found out the hard way that they're also highly flammable.
Two unlucky concertgoers were hospitalized Sunday night when a pyrotechnics stunt opening the Grammy winner's St. Louis concert went awry and sparks flew into the front row of the venue.
During the opening moments of the show, the "Ring the Alarm" singer appeared on stage while a blaze of pyrotechnics, for the most part, rained down around her. In a burst of malfunction, however, some of the fireworks took a detour from landing on the stage and instead made a beeline for the unwitting audience members.
Bailey Stiles, 19, and Chastity Rodgers, whose age hasn't been revealed, were taken straight from their too-close-for-comfort seats at the Scottrade Center to the nearby Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where the duo was treated for minor burns. Both have since been released.
But not before getting treated to some A-list bedside manner.
Shortly after the show—which did go on—wrapped, Beyoncé paid a visit to the patients, checking on the extent of their injuries and, in doing so, inadvertently putting the kibosh on any litigious leanings.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Beyoncé showed up at the hospital just after 1 a.m. and stuck around for 45 minutes of chatting and picture taking before making her exit.
"She just kind of walked in," Stiles told the paper. "Pretty much, I was like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe she's really here'...I was just awestruck."
"It was amazing for her to come and make sure we were okay. That just shows that she has tons of class."
The 25-year-old singer also appeared to make another fan at the hospital—that of head nurse Darryl Williams, who seemed to shoot down the notion that the star's visit was damage control, instead claiming it was the result of genuine concern.
"She was just very concerned about the people injured in the audience," Williams told the Associated Press. "It was unannounced and we kept it very low-key so that she could spend time with them."
As for what caused the incident in the first place, St. Louis Fire Captain Baron Ross told the Post-Dispatch that it was likely due to a fluke problem with the pyrotechnic device, which had been checked and deemed to meet with the department's standards prior to the concert.
"We even did a test of it before the show, and reinspected it," he said.
As for Beyoncé, she's already back on the tour trail, and is scheduled to resume performing, as planned, Wednesday night in Monterrey, Mexico. She returns to the U.S. later this week, with a show in Dallas on Friday.
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