Disaster Teenage boy, 14, dies after plunging from 400ft drop tower ride at Orlando's ICON Park [Video] - Teen was taken to hospital but died from his injuries, Orange County police said.

Archived video of the fall referenced in the article (but not included), fetched from YouTube (likely to be deleted soon). NSFL. Don't watch if you don't want to see someone splatter at the 3:40 timestamp:



A teenager has died after falling from a drop ride at a theme park in Orlando, Florida

The 14-year-old fell from the plunging ride - the world's tallest free-standing drop tower - at ICON park, just after 11pm on Thursday.

The teen, who has not yet been identified, was taken to hospital but succumbed to his injuries, Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

Terrifying footage captured the horrific accident and the screams of witnesses as the boy fell from the ride, which rotates around a tower as it rises in the air before plunging to the ground at 75 miles per hour.

The ride, the Orlando Free Fall, opened in December 2021, stands at 430ft tall and can accommodate up to 30 people.

The vehicle rotates around a central tower as it rises. After it reaches the top, riders tilt forward and face the ground briefly before free-falling at approximately 75 miles per hour.

It was not immediately clear how the teenager became free from the ride's seat belt or how many people were on the tower at the time.

ICON Park on International Drive has not yet commented on the tragedy. Police have opened an investigation into the incident.

A teenager has died after falling from a drop ride at ICON theme park on International Drive in Orlando, Florida just after 11pm on Thursday

The teen, who has not yet been identified, was taken to hospital but succumbed to his injuries, Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

It comes less than two years after a park employee died after falling 200 feet from the Orlando StarFlyer attraction.

The 21-year-old employee was performing a safety check about halfway up the 450-foot-tall ride when he plummeted to his death just before 8am on September 14, the Orange County Sheriff's Office stated.

The worker struck a platform below the ride at ICON Park on International Drive in Orlando and went into cardiac arrest, according to first responders who were called to the scene.

The man was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead from his injuries.

The swing ride opened to the public in 2018. According to the description on the attraction's official site, StarFlyer has no age limit and no weight limit, and the minimum height required to go on the ride is just 44 inches.

The ride is made up of 24 double seats that travel up and down and around the giant tower for 3-4 minutes.

At the time of the fall, the worker was about halfway up the 450-foot-high ride, billed at the world's tallest swing ride

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10651331/Teen-dies-fall-Florida-amusement-park-ride.html
https://archive.ph/nLadc
 
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I rewatched the initial part of the ride when the safety checks should have happened, and there's a few things going on.

The operator fucked up, you're supposed to push down the harness firmly so that it clicks further down, even if it's initially uncomfortable for the guest so that they don't slip out or get thrown around while seated. Clearly the kid did a little love tap and rushed through the job.

The girl on the right even asks why there isn't an additional seat belt to the ride. I couldn't hear the kid's answer, but I've mostly seen those rides have the harness either have a vertical belt to click the harness in between the legs, or an entirely separate seatbelt going across the lap.

It's an unfortunate combination of a lazy employee and design. The kid may have ironically lived had he been fatter, so that he wouldn't have slipped out of the harness because it would have been pushing down on him enough to prevent the moment bouncing him into the pavement.
 
We have the teenybopper operators hanging around the rail bullshitting instead of getting everybody else off the ride and away from the victim. They seem oblivious to any concern other than this might require them to work overtime.
I kinda feel bad for them, they see these rides operate fine consistantly, when there is an injury it not usually fatal and if it is, its not an surprise dropped right in the open, in everybody's face. Teenyboppers on minimum wage are the last people I'd expect responsibility and/or professionalism from.
 
View attachment 3107273
Here's a photo of the seating system, it's interesting to me there's no nylon crotch strap.

Most if not all rides I've been on line this where your feet dangle have the ratcheting shoulder system, but also a seatbelt style click in nylon strap that holds the overhead system to the bottom of the ride between the riders legs. So even in the event of the shoulder system failing there's still something there.
I used to work on a free fall ride for a summer.

The seatbelt strap was also a good test to see if someone was too fat to ride. If it couldn't buckle, you knew it was a safety issue. The dead kid was massive. Look out the gap in the restraint compared to the normal size people in the foreground of the video. He should have never been let on the ride.
 
Who would've thought that wage slaves are sloppy at checkimg seatbelts.

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@Quixotic Man
in this year you'd be a fatphobe if you told an alleged 14yr old that.
Fun fact: we had to record how delays on the ride. If we had to tell a fatty that they couldn't ride after trying to push their blubber in to the seat, we put down code "82." The mnemonic they taught us to remember that code was that the guest "ate too much."

Fat people, short people, and Brazilians are the greatest threats to public safety at theme parks.
 
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Please elaborate on what short people and Brazilians are doing to public safety at theme parks.
Short people will try tricks to make themselves taller so they can ride rides unsafe for them and threaten your smaller female coworkers if you tell them they can't ride.

Brazilians travel in packs, act like entitled assholes, and get in to fights with other Brazilians due to them doing soccer chants for rival teams.
 
In the beginning of the vid you can see his ( black guy on the very left, in side profile ) restraint is simply not down as much as the other attendees. Most likely because his stomach got in the way. You can see it going down to their legs, while it is up quite a bit for him.

View attachment 3107292

While that seemed tight enough to keep him secured sitting, he most likely just slipped right through it as the fat moved out of the way given the forces. So the restraint didn't really fail in that sense. I wonder why there's no connecting strap / bar between the legs tho
Its the guy in blue t shirt correct
 
I rewatched the initial part of the ride when the safety checks should have happened, and there's a few things going on.

The operator fucked up, you're supposed to push down the harness firmly so that it clicks further down, even if it's initially uncomfortable for the guest so that they don't slip out or get thrown around while seated. Clearly the kid did a little love tap and rushed through the job.

The girl on the right even asks why there isn't an additional seat belt to the ride. I couldn't hear the kid's answer, but I've mostly seen those rides have the harness either have a vertical belt to click the harness in between the legs, or an entirely separate seatbelt going across the lap.

It's an unfortunate combination of a lazy employee and design. The kid may have ironically lived had he been fatter, so that he wouldn't have slipped out of the harness because it would have been pushing down on him enough to prevent the moment bouncing him into the pavement.
Its also Florida. Lmao.
 
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