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Meghan Symonette, a volunteer balloon handler for the 2023 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, recounts how the arm of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid balloon crashed into a tree before the parade began.
“It was very tragic,” she tells PEOPLE in an interview
Simonette felt prepared to be a balloonist, but said balloonist training does not include navigating around trees and other city infrastructure.
For nearly a century, on Thanksgiving morning, the streets and skies of New York City are filled with lines of larger-than-life inflatables, including Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog, Pikachu, SpongeBob SquarePants, and dozens of other adorable characters represented as giant balloons.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade’s iconic floats often glide effortlessly between the city’s skyscrapers, but especially strong gusts of wind or unlucky street signs can sometimes wreak havoc, sometimes causing fabric rips and dramatic crash landings.
In 2023, parade fans may remember that some of that year’s floats appeared deflated. That includes “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” character Greg Heffley, whose entire arm was limp for much of his journey through Manhattan.
As fans at home speculated about what happened to the multi-story balloon, Megan Symonette, one of Macy’s volunteer balloon handlers, was assigned directly behind the balloon, giving her a front-row seat to the drama.
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“It was so tragic,” she tells People of the experience. “Right before the parade started, his arm hit a tree. His whole arm deflated.”
Simonet, who was working with balloons for the first time that year, thought he had everything ready. In September, I attended a training session on how to handle balloons at MetLife Stadium. “But when we practice at the Jets stadium, there are no trees,” she says.
Throughout the parade, the float in front of Simonette had “an awkward deflated arm,” she recalled.
Symonette said deflated balloons pose no safety threat, but they do make the parade less fun for the volunteer balloon operators who rise at dawn to guide the iconic float through city streets.
“It’s a shame because the balloon people can’t do anything with it at that point,” she says with a laugh. “It’s sad to see.”
But as a balloon handler, Simonet said he was surprised to learn how often minor deflation accidents occur. I also learned that the balloons are actually sewn together to have many small sections, so if one limb rips, the whole float doesn’t collapse.
megan simonette
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And fortunately for Simonette, she has never witnessed anything as dramatic as the 1997 disaster. The 45 mph winds caused several floats, including Barney, to fly erratically and crash into nearby infrastructure, leaving one person in a coma with a fractured skull, Esquire reported.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Simonet declares.
