Eight female performers who were seriously injured in Rhode Island after falling about 20 feet during a circus act in which they were suspended aloft by their hair are improving, relatives said Tuesday. 
 
 “The girls are all OK, you know, and my daughter is OK,” said Roiter Neves, the father of Widny Neves, a 25-year-old aerial acrobat who was injured Sunday during the accident at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence. 
 
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 Another performer, Stefany Neves, is struggling to recover, he said. “Stefany is the worst of all,” he said in a telephone interview. 
 
 Related Photos Circus accident in Providence 
 
 Eliane Neves, the mother of the 19-year-old dancer, said she was the first girl to hit the ground, according to an interview published online by O Globo, a Brazilian newspaper based in Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 The account said Stefany fractured her heels, femur, and a rib, which pierced her liver and caused internal bleeding. She was listed in serious condition Tuesday afternoon, according to Rhode Island Hospital. 
 
 Also listed in serious condition were Dayana Costa, Julissa Segrera, and Viktoriya Medeiros, whose husband, Andrey, created the act. 
 
 At the patients’ request, no information was released by the hospital about the conditions of Widny Neves, Svitlana Balanicheva, Viktorila Liakhova, and Samantha Pitard. 
 
 Pitard is doing “much better,” her sister Sarah said in an e-mail. She added Pitard wants privacy while she heals. 
 
 An investigation into the accident by the Providence Fire Department found a 4-inch carabiner fastener was the only piece of equipment to fail in the accident, which injured a total of nine performers. 
 
 The investigator, Paul Doughty, said he completed his investigation and sent evidence, including the failed carabiner, to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. An agency spokesman said its inspection is ongoing. 
 
 The fastener, which helped support an umbrella-shaped frame that suspended the performers, was found in three pieces on the ground, Providence fire officials said. 
 
 The city’s investigation didn’t reveal why the carabiner failed, but Doughty said there are three possibilities: The clip was overloaded; it wasn’t rigged properly; or it had a manufacturing defect. 
 
 Eight performers were hanging by their hair from an umbrella-shaped apparatus at about 11:45 a.m. on Sunday when it gave way, sending acrobats to the ground and injuring a dancer who was on the floor. 
 
 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is also investigating the carabiner as part of its probe of the accident, said Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, the circus’s parent company. “We do not know if that’s the sole cause of the accident,” Payne said. 
 
 He said the steel carabiner that failed was put into use in December and could hold just over 10,000 pounds. The apparatus and women suspended from it weighed just under 1,400 pounds, he said. 
 
 “Every piece of equipment used for the hair-hang display is rated for weight loads well over the total weight of the act,” the company said in a statement. 
 
 The circus is planning to replace all of its carabiners before performances resume Thursday in Hartford, Payne said, adding he did not have information about the company that made the carabiner that failed or the one that manufactures the replacement carabiners. 
 
 The circus also inspected all of its equipment before leaving Providence , Payne said. ||||| One of the eight circus acrobats who plunged to the ground during a hair-hanging act said she is not sure if she or any of the other acrobats will ever perform the act again. 
 
 “For now, it’ll be a while and it’s not sure if any of us will be doing hair again,” Samantha Pitard said today on “Good Morning America.” “I will, eventually, not sure when yet, go back to the show.” 
 
 Pitard was released from the hospital Tuesday, two days after she and seven other acrobats fell nearly 35 feet while performing a "human chandelier," an act that entails hanging from an apparatus by their hair, during a Sunday performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus in Providence, R.I. 
 
 “It was just like our normal day,” Pitard said. “We’ve done this show hundreds of times. We go inside a big curtain that will eventually drop to reveal us all hanging up there, all eight of us hanging by our hair.” 
 
 
 
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 “We went in, got connected up, everything was just like any normal show,” said Pitard, a native of Champaign, Ill., who joined Ringling Bros. in 2012. “The curtain went down and we got to about the third leg position, hear a huge popping noise and then just plummet to the ground.” 
 
 Pitard said she landed sitting up and bit her tongue so hard it’s still, "kind of messed up." She also required three stitches to repair a cut on her head and had small fractures on her spine. 
 
 “I’m a little bit sore this morning, but overall I’m feeling OK,” Pitard said on 'GMA." 
 
 Pitard’s seven fellow acrobats remain hospitalized and Pitard said she first thought of them after the crash. 
 
 “I asked, ‘Is everybody alive?' and they [paramedics] were able to tell me, ‘Yes, everybody is alive. Everybody is conscious,’” Pitard said. “Which is incredible. Like, I don’t know how. Somebody was watching over us, for sure.” 
 
 Providence fire officials have determined that a single, five-inch steel clip designed to support as much as 10,000 pounds was at fault for the crash, even though the weight of the apparatus and performers Sunday was just 1,500 pounds. 
 
 Pitard said she always felt safe while performing the “hair hanging” act. 
 
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 “We’ve been practicing this act since last year,” she said. “Our troop leader is huge on safety. That is his top priority, so we all feel very safe with him. We all feel very safe in the troupe.” 
 
 “Personally, I feel safe,” she said. 
 
 'Hair Hanging' a Rare, Painful Circus Act 
 
 “Hairialists” like Pitard are part of a long circus tradition that results in twirling bodies dangling 35 feet in the air, secured to the ceiling by no more than their own braided tresses. 
 
 “The big thing is you just have to take good care of it,” Pitard said of her hair. “You can’t diet. You can’t use product in it. You can’t blow dry it. You can’t straighten it. It has to just be natural.” 
 
 “You also just have to have the right hair, the right thickness, the right strength,” she said. “Use really nice shampoo, take lots of vitamins, eat healthy.” 
 
 Following “the show must go on” mantra, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus has continued on to perform in Hartford, Conn. Pitard, however, is staying behind in Providence to be with “her girls.” 
 
 “For the time being, I’m going to be staying here with all my girls,” she said. “They’re all being taken care of really well. Everyone, thankfully, is expected to fully recover, which we are all incredibly, incredibly happy about.” 
 
 ABC News' Rheana Murray and Gio Benitez contributed to this report. ||||| Two of the eight Ringling Bros. acrobats who plunged more than 30 feet during a performance in Rhode Island have spinal cord injuries, and the extent of their recovery won't be clear for months, doctors said Tuesday. 
 
 "The patients with the critical spinal cord injuries show some mild improvement," said Dr. Adetokunbo Oyelese of Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. 
 
 "We are certain they can make some sort of a recovery but again, only time will tell." 
 
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 Some of the other women may fully recover — or the injuries may be career-altering, said the doctors, who have performed 17 surgeries on the group. 
 
 "Some people recover remarkable activity," Dr. Roman Hayda said. 
 
 "Where will these people end up is still unknown but given what I've seen, I think they will go far," he added. "Whether they can perform, do handstands and do things like that…we’re working on that." 
 
 Members of the troupe are uncommonly resilient and tough, though. One of the performers initially refused pain medication because she was worried it would interfere with her stretching routine. 
 
 The eight women were suspended by their hair from a metal frame when the apparatus suddenly crashed to the floor during a Sunday morning performance at the Dunkin' Donuts Center. 
 
 Rhode Island officials have said a single carabiner, a steel ring connecting the frame to a cable, snapped for unknown reasons. 
 
 A male dancer on the floor was banged up but not seriously injured. One of the women, Samantha Pitard, was released from the hospital Tuesday and said she will get back in the air. 
 
 "You gotta get back up and do it again," Pitard told the Associated Press. 
 
 — Tracy Connor
– Only one of the acrobats who fell during a circus act last weekend has been released, and she wants back in the ring—but the others may not perform or even walk again, the AP reports. Their 20-foot fall during a hair-hanging act left several in intensive care, with injuries including spinal fractures, broken joints and bones, and a lacerated liver. The two worst-injured can barely move their legs. "We are certain they can make some sort of a recovery," a doctor at their Rhode Island hospital told NBC News. "Whether they can perform, do handstands and do things like that ... we’re working on that." Some may be released in a few days, but face months of physical therapy—which they've asked to do in the same rehabilitation facility. The one who's out, Samantha Pitard, told ABC News that she bit her tongue in the fall and it's "kind of messed up." She took a step-by-step attitude: "For now, it’ll be a while and it’s not sure if any of us will be doing hair again," she said. "I will, eventually, not sure when yet, go back to the show." Meanwhile, investigators say the broken clip that caused the accident was either manufactured badly or improperly used (see a detailed picture of it at the Boston Globe). The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Baily circus plans to perform tomorrow in Hartford, Conn., but won't do the hair-hanging act.