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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Shit like this is what fuels acrophobia. Never been on a rollercoaster or anything with serious heights and this is one of the many reasons why. Yeah, someone is definitely going to get fired over this.
Technically it's not the height that will kill you. It's the ground.
The whole park is getting susued.
I'm sure it won't be the first time for ghetto Disney.


His death will probably be counted as a Covid fatality
It's Florida and he's male. They just rubber stamp it "Florida Man"
 
Kiwi Farms confirmed TOO CUCKED to ride ROLLERCOASTERS
Guilty as charged. I have a very low threshold for hurtling induced terror. I’ll just about get in those ‘meander round the fake rainforest in a fake river in a fake barrel boat’ rides but I draw the line just before the teacups. It is what it is
 
Video of inspectors measuring the restraints after the incident.


Just to give an idea of how big of a gap the fat teenager had to fall through.

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Source
 
Parks- usually rare, but not unknown. There was a ride in Ohio where a drunk as a skunk woman defeated the safety restraints and fell from a ride at Kings Island in the 90's.

Traveling rides at fairs- Get life insurance first.
Thats not a failure of the system, thats a failure to use reason when you are sauced.
 
That's fucking horrifying, looks like the restraint separated from the bottom and then lifted and he had no idea what was going on till he hit the ground.

I feel sorry for him and his family.

One question I want to ask is what caused this was it lack of maintenance? a lot of these parks just shut down during covid and rides like this are complex machines and normally get regular servicing that would catch things likely to fail before they do fail and if they are in a rush to get the park back into action they might skip some checks and it lead upto this tragic accident.

Edit -
Looking at it this might have failed before the drop, or on the accent - but I'm thinking of basic safety requirements here - safety restraints that work by hydrolics are meant to have a safety contact trigger fire no fire system (there is a name for this for rides but I'm not sure about it but I've got a working knowledge of hydrolics not park systems) and if a safety system fails they are designed to blow off pressure slowly and return to a resting position if that didn't fail that becomes a mechanical failure like a Pin giving way etc, but those things are suposed to have a 10x1 failure loading under any circumstance.
Excellent point on this, I would really like to know how many people have died or had their lives ruined as a direct result of the past two years of overreacting to a bad cold that primarily kills fat/unhealthy people.

The number is probably staggering.
 
Thats not a failure of the system, thats a failure to use reason when you are sauced.
It is a failure of the system in that these rides are supposed to be idiotproof.

"Pothead ride operator" + "drunk patron" should not equal "red smear on the pavement."

The ride operator should have the authority and the training to keep drunk people off the ride, and the ride itself should not allow the riders to move much in their seats.

That's a failure of the system.
 
The ride has a critical design and safety flaw. Unless a harness ratchets to a certain point, guaranteeing a person cannot slide through the gap regardless of the force applied, it shouldn't trigger an actuator from each ratcheting shoulder joint, which have independent signal paths to the main control system. When each pair of actuators from each seat show green it would then release a master lockout condition that cannot be overridden by anyone. This ensures that every seat is secure and the stupid teenager running the ride literally can't create a safety hazard. If an actuator goes bad such a lockout condition would make said ride inoperable until repaired, but that's how it should be. Safety should be the first priority for any ride.
 
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The ride has a critical design and safety flaw. Unless a harness ratchets to a certain point, guaranteeing a person cannot slide through the gap regardless of the force applied. it shouldn't trigger an actuator from each ratcheting shoulder joint, which have independent signal paths to the main control system. When each pair of actuators from each seat show green it would then release a master lockout condition that cannot be overridden by anyone. This ensures that every seat is secure and the stupid teenager running the ride literally can't create a safety hazard. If an actuator goes bad such a lockout condition would make said ride inoperable until repaired, but that's how it should be. Safety should be the first priority for any ride.
I agree. There was two failures here--the design of the system itself which is borderline criminal negligence, and the fabricator is certain to be bankrupted by this--as they should be, and the operator clearly failing to check the guy's harness, which is understandable because it's an amusement ride operator.
 
It is a failure of the system in that these rides are supposed to be idiotproof.

"Pothead ride operator" + "drunk patron" should not equal "red smear on the pavement."

The ride operator should have the authority and the training to keep drunk people off the ride, and the ride itself should not allow the riders to move much in their seats.

That's a failure of the system.
They built a better idiot as they have time and time again.

Shouldn't but it did.

Authority yes, but do you think someone being paid as little as they do gives a fuck? you also cant awlays tell if someone is under influence of anything. Sometimes they hide it very well.

if you secure yourself properly they dont. And this person didnt.
 
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Side note: kid was apparently called Tyre Samson, pic may be him but ymmv since all the sources are one story c+p'd across various sites.

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Story claims he was into football and shit, so that's part of why he's massive, but looks like he was all-around hefty.
 
Side note: kid was apparently called Tyre Samson, pic may be him but ymmv since all the sources are one story c+p'd across various sites.

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Story claims he was into football and shit, so that's part of why he's massive, but looks like he was all-around hefty.
If this fucker fell through the gap in the chair god hated him at that point.
 
The thing is every other park is hiring their engineering and maintenance staff that has been fired from both of those places for all kinds of reasons. Disney and Universal pay shit wages and every other park in Orlando is substantially less than that. Busch Gardens gets a pass, but it's its own thing.
There's some good Midwestern parks like Cedar Point and Kings Island, but generally most of the time this is true. A lot of rides at places like this are barely above carnival level in terms of maintenance.
 
Authority yes, but do you think someone being paid as little as they do gives a fuck? you also cant awlays tell if someone is under influence of anything. Sometimes they hide it very well.
Friend of a friend worked for Six Flags in Vallejo when someone ate it. To hear the tale, everyone in the park had to piss in a cup and they all got interrogated like a terry at Gitmo.

There's "IDGAF if your burger has an extra pickle slice" and then there's "IDGAF if you literally die at my feet due to my own halfassery."

You gotta be pretty fuckin' based to not give a fuck about kids dying, no matter what you're paid.

Also, that kid had better tiddies than most troons on here. At least the nips look like they're on speaking terms.
 
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Pick one. Disneyland gets props for being first. But Orlando/FL is the undisputed king of amusement parks in NA. There's enough cut rate attractions around pretty much any carnie can find somewhere hiring.
The point is that in an area like Orlando all of the actual good technicians and maintenance crews are in the Disney and Universal parks. No body is going to work at "Icon" when they can get a job at Disney world.
 
These sort of deaths bother most when they were 100% preventable. I can't even rationalize how awful this was for the victim and everyone who witnessed it.

There's no way I can watch that video because I've been traumatized by much less. The only upside (in my opinion) to this grisly recording existing is that it can be used as evidence against this park.

I know these events are rare but they still happen way too often. It should never happen, period. There needs to be greater precautions taken 'cause apparently there aren't enough as is.

Some idiots get themselves killed by rides, though it usually involves them fucking with their harnesses or running where they shouldn't.
 
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