A soldier at Buckingham Palace slipped and fell during the Changing of the Guard.
Weather permitting, the Changing of the Guard takes place at 11:30 a.m. each day in the summer, and every other day in the winter. On this particular day, the Queen’s Guard just couldn’t seem to get his footing together and slipped on a manhole cover, knocking his rifle out of his hands and tipping his bearskin helmet on the box.
The incident wouldn’t have been so bad if there hadn’t been hundreds of tourists watching every move. The solider quickly scrambled to his feet as his fellow soldiers continued marching as if nothing had happened.
“I was with my family for a trip to London and I thought I’d take some pictures of the changing of the guards,” David Meadwell, an onlooker who filmed the fall, told The Telegraph .
“The first group changed successfully, without any problems, and so I decided to video the next group doing it,” David added. “I didn’t expect anything like this to happen – he went flying. There were quite a few people around and there were a lot of gasps as he went down. I think he just slipped on a manhole cover, he looked so embarrassed.”
The soldier, who has remained unnamed, is believed to have tripped due to the metal protectors nailed to the soles of his shoes.
[Photo by Oil Scarff/Getty Images]
