Garden Bros Circus Performer Falls During Wheel Stunt

10:55 AM PT -- A rep for the show tells us the performer got X-rays and results confirmed nothing was broken. He will get an MRI later Tuesday ... and he'll be sore for a while.

Crazy video here of a circus acrobat who plummeted to the ground in the middle of a dangerous, death-defying act ... bringing the circus to an abrupt halt -- but the miracle is somehow the guy survived.

The acrobat was part of the Garden Bros Circus performing in Toledo, Ohio Monday night at the Huntington Center. In this exclusive footage, obtained by TMZ, you can see the guy and his partner pulling insane moves in and outside of giant spinning wheels -- kinda like human hamsters, if hamsters could do flips.

The crowd screamed in horror though when one of the guys slipped while doing a front flip on top of the spinning wheel. He did not stick the landing and crashed to the ground.

Fortunately for him, the fall happened as his end of the apparatus was closer to the ground ... as opposed to its highest point, which seems to have seriously helped the dude. Spotters couldn't do much to break his fall.

His partner eventually got out of his own wheel and rushed down a ladder to help.

Paramedics quickly responded too ... and according to Huntington Center brass, the performer was released from a hospital with minor injuries. As of now, he's set to return for Tuesday night's show.