Freak Show Performer injured in freak accident

By Dan Ovsey

He didn't even flinch.
After putting a blade through the palm of his hand in a game of Russian Roulette gone awry, Nikolai Diablo only stopped for a moment to show the crowd the wound before moving on to the hammering of a nail into his skull.
But the blood was flowing steadily and Diablo, whose real name is Scott McClelland, had to call a time-out.
A half-hour later an announcement told an anxious audience the rest of the show was cancelled. Most of the audience thought the accident was part of the show.
"What happened to my hand here is inconsequential to the fact that the show must go on," said McClelland, as he sat in a wheelchair backstage waiting to be taken to the hospital for tests.
The feat-master has been performing Carnival Diablo, a freak sideshow which will be running nightly during Klondike Days, for ten years after he inherited it from his grandfather, who started the show in 1920.
But despite the injury he suffered in the Russian Roulette routine, which involves smashing three of four Styrofoam cups-one of which hides a large blade placed by an audience member-McClelland said he will not be deterred from performing the act again.