Man accidentally stabs self on stage

An actor’s suicide scene became a little too real for comfort when he accidentally stabbed himself in the neck during a performance after a stage prop was replaced with a sharp knife at an Austrian theater.

Daniel Hoevels of the Thalia Theater company from Hamburg, Germany, was supposed to be using a knife blunted for use onstage, but the knife had been switched with a sharp one for the show Saturday night.

Vienna police said Thursday they were investigating “bodily injury caused by negligence.”

The theater company said the original prop knife was damaged and that instructions to blunt the replacement had been “carelessly” disregarded.

Hoevels received stitches for his injury at a hospital and was back on stage the next day. He was playing the role of Mortimer in Friedrich Schiller’s “Mary Stuart.”