Seventy-three years later, details of the tragedy still give pause to those who hear them.

On March 6, 1952, before a packed ice skating show at the 5th Regiment Armory, a newly constructed wooden grandstand splintered and collapsed, plunging hundreds of spectators more than 15 feet to the ground. There many of them lay, some buried in the wreckage, until rescued by first responders. More than 250 were injured and taken to nine Baltimore hospitals, suffering abrasions, head injuries and broken bones.

Remarkably, no one died. But the incident, which occurred at the start of the much anticipated Sonja Henie Ice Revue, caused havoc in Baltimore, taxed the city’s emergency services, triggered $5 million in lawsuits and blemished the career of Henie, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, media darling and Hollywood movie star. Her first appearance in the city would be her last.

Five minutes before the show was to start, nine rows of bleachers in a temporary grandstand, hastily assembled, quivered and crashed, swallowing about 600 men, women and children. From a balcony overhead, photographer Walter M. McCardell of The Sun turned his camera on the carnage below, and a Sun reporter assigned to cover the ice show filed a gripping front-page story instead.

For five minutes after the accident, The Sun reported, the collapsed section in the armory was “a screaming pandemonium. Women, pinned beneath heavy planks and timbers, shrieked in pain. Men tearing at the tangled mass of beams and light wooden chairs, shouted in frustrated desperation. Parents pawed desperately for their children; men, for their wives and dates.”

Emergency workers were hampered from reaching the injured by the frantic, milling throng. Thirty minutes later, the Sun reported, medics still had not tended to a distraught woman half-buried by the shattered stands, groaning, with both legs apparently broken.

“Mothers, in some cases, were taken to one hospital, and fathers to another,” The Sun reported. “Lost children cried at the edge of the crowd.”

Some dazed spectators took time to hope for the victims: “Here, a woman knelt in audible prayer; there, a woman fingered her rosary.”

Others answered the call for help: “A young woman — her face scratched and smeared with dust — pulled herself loose from the wreckage. ‘I’m a nurse,’ she said. ‘What can I do?'”

For several hours, all 15 of the city’s ambulances — and some police cars — whisked the injured to local hospitals. Henie herself was not hurt; the 39-year-old Norwegian ice queen had been in her dressing room when she heard the noise and thought “It was a train going under the building.”

Moments later, The Sun reported, Henie stood backstage, obviously shaken, anxiously “wringing her hands” and asking, “What ought I to do? What ought I to do?”

The show that evening — the first in a seven-day engagement — was canceled, as state and city investigators sought answers. It wasn’t difficult. The defective grandstand was a last-minute add-on; workmen were still hammering it together as people took their seats. The wood was green. The nails were few. The bleachers would have failed a city inspection, but none was needed as the armory is a state-owned facility. All in all, a perfect storm for a disaster

The accident drew national attention. McCardell’s photographs were published in Life Magazine on March 17. Governor Theodore McKeldin called the incident “an outrage” and promised to issue an executive order for safety checks in the future. Nearly 400 lawsuits seeking $5 million in damages were filed by injured spectators.

In a 12-day trial in May 1953, Henie and her corporation were absolved of blame in Baltimore City court, though counsel for the plaintiffs told the jury that “greed for money, and more seats to supply more money” had led to the slipshod construction of the grandstand. Liability fell to Coronati Amusements, Inc., the New Jersey firm that erected it. Two years later, settlements of all claims were complete.

Two days after the accident, with the debris cleared, Henie’s ice show went on — a glittering panorama in which the star wore six different dazzling costumes while skating for an adoring crowd. Absent were 1,000 ticket-holders, barred from the venue, whose seats in that ill-fated grandstand had not been replaced.

Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.