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

 

[Malt]

Christ, this is tragic. Dude just wanted to have fun on a ride and got thrown head-first into the concrete at 70+MPH instead. And his friend was strapped in and was practically forced to see his mate's corpse. How many levels of incompetence are involved here?

Sure, the family can sue the park, that kid can get locked up for negligent homicide, but that guy being punished for not checking the safety harness and the family getting a few hundred thousand bucks isn't gonna make up for the loss of their son.

Tragedy aside, it's probably gonna be more than a 'few hundred thousand bucks'. Reading through the Verruckt story, the family of the kid who was killed got about $20 million. I imagine similar numbers will be in play.

 

[Black Light Red Panic]

His death will probably be counted as a Covid fatality

I can't believe the Russians hacked the harnesses of the brave Ukrainean soldier known as the Wet Splat Iron Wolf of Kiev.

 

[InwardsStink]

View attachment 3108421

It really does take a retard to think that is okay and to not yell out at the operator when the ride started moving. No sympathy.

 

[KiwiFuzz]

Some of y'all have never been in an accident or seen an accident before and it shows.

People act all kinds of ways.

I've been in situations where I calmly took control and I have been in situations where I acted like a little bitch and I have been in situations where I did nothing.

This one time I was walking down the street and I saw two cars hit each other in a totally uncontrolled intersection. Neither car was wrecked but both certainly needed body work.

The women driver got out and threw her arms around the other driver, who was a man, and started sobbing.

I did nothing; I kept on walking.

I can't shit on what someone does in the immediate seconds after something awful happens.

 

[Burned CDs]

Terrifying. Damn.

I went on one of these last summer for the first and last time in my life.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

Believe it or not. He may not have been immediately dead. He came down flat leading with his arms legs and ass. Depending on how hard his head hit, there mayy have been something for the medics and ER to work with for a bit. Plus it's a kid. You don't call a kid on the ground like that. You're gonna work it.

The article says he died in the hospital. Dude spent at least half an hour cosplaying as a roach from when you stomp it once.

 

[Protistology]

The heartbroken dad is demanding to know why his 6-foot-5, 340-pound son was even allowed on the ride after he was stopped from getting on others due to his size.

Because he would've called the ride operator a racist and all his "supportive friends" who couldn't be bothered to notice the loose harness would've backed him up to get free shit

Dats racsiss and didn't do nofhin are the catchphrases of niggers.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Yeah, a cousin of mine called her mom after an accident and said "Hi mom, first off, I'm okay..." It later turned out she had broken her neck and collar bone (but hadn't damaged her spinal cord) in addition to other injuries after rolling her car like five times when a semi decided to move into her lane while she was there.

I said the same thing when I had somebody next to me go into a spin in snow and take me out as well (apparently my cousin's words were in my mom's head when I said that and scared the ever living shit out of her, even though my accident was way way less dramatic).

Natasha Richardson got in that ski accident and yet she was up walking talking and then she just expired....just like that.

 

[Screamer]

The dude was just too big for the ride.

These rides are built with a size guide. Potentially it never considered a combination of that tall and that fat. Or the people loading guests ignored it. There probably was also signage around it, which was ignored by the deceased.

It's possible the momentum of his mass broke the system.

The harness is probably registered as locked, but it appears to not be in a position that would hold him in the seat. So he slides out. As he's too big for the safety system.

The Carnies are just going through the motions, someone should have clocked that his harness was really high up and he was too big. It's obvious in the video "Harnesses, locked" is all they're concerned about. These kinds of rides can't activate unless all the harnesses are locked. It's basic safety protocols.

Not to speak poorly of the deceased, but there is a level of self-responsibility that he didn't take.

The girl in the video highlights this by assessing the situation and questioning why there's no buckle strap. The guy that died, is happily sitting there with a harness not in a position to secure him. Which it seems he became aware of after it was too late.

This can be partially excused as him being young and just assuming safety is the responsibility of the ride and carnies.

Although from observation, younger large people can be in denial that their size makes them different. Especially when it comes to other people doing things that they are sized out of doing. The father made mentioned that he wasn't allowed on a lot of rides. Questioning why he was allowed on this one.

Based on my observations of human behaviour. There's a good chance he's annoyed as fuck that all his friends and everyone else can do all these fun rides. Instead of accepting this, these people often try and push back. Even though they're too big, they'll still try and do the activity they can't. Which in a situation like this, allows for you to get through an already pretty poor safety system. Which unfortunately can have terrible consequences.

He was probably just too excited he could actually get on a thrill ride, to realise he shouldn't be on it.

Maybe even with a thrill of knowingly slipping through the safety protocols.

 

[Aidan]

That said, the chad move to have made would have been to continue to let the ride go up and down for the original three more times. People go on those rides for the thrills and adrenaline rush. Can you imagine the terror of riding that three more times just after you saw one of the riders fall to their death and go splat? Should have given them the ultimate Null thrill.

This is such a wildly inappropriate remark that I fell 100ft out of my seat and died laughing

 

[76LD910]

The dude was just too big for the ride.

Yeah he clearly just slipped out once it decelerated, I don't see anything wrong with the seat itself aside from a shitty design that wouldn't add a second layer of protection in this type of scenario where a person was allowed on who shouldn't be.

Aside from being very tall He had a layer of blubber that compressed and further eased Him coming lose through the gap left by the ratcheting locks.

I can totally see Him realizing something was wrong as soon as He started ascending, maybe He assumed some further seat adjustment would happen automatically once the ride was activated similar to how you expect a seat like this to automatically unlock once the rides over and started freaking out when it didn't.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and rode one of those giant swing rides that go back and forth, not the kind that makes a 360 rotation but just goes to about 90 degrees, and thinking as soon as it started reaching its limits that I was too small to be on it. There was nothing but a bar over our knees securing us and I was literally wearing myself out gripping it from the underside and pushing up to keep my ass on the seat because it kept coming off of it every time it peaked. The smooth plastic back rest was slightly inclined so I felt like if I just let go and straightened my legs slightly I would go flying out of it.

 

[Suburban Bastard]

That said, the chad move to have made would have been to continue to let the ride go up and down for the original three more times. People go on those rides for the thrills and adrenaline rush. Can you imagine the terror of riding that three more times just after you saw one of the riders fall to their death and go splat? Should have given them the ultimate Null thrill.

This is the greatest comment ever and you should be put in charge of an amusement park solely for it.

 

[ARghEAT]

Yeah he clearly just slipped out once it decelerated, I don't see anything wrong with the seat itself aside from a shitty design that wouldn't add a second layer of protection in this type of scenario where a person was allowed on who shouldn't be.

Aside from being very tall He had a layer of blubber that compressed and further eased Him coming lose through the gap left by the ratcheting locks.

I can totally see Him realizing something was wrong as soon as He started ascending, maybe He assumed some further seat adjustment would happen automatically once the ride was activated similar to how you expect a seat like this to automatically unlock once the rides over and started freaking out when it didn't.

Why'd you capitalise all the 'he's and 'him's? Are you implying he's God or something?

 

[mindlessobserver]

The kid was too fat for the harness. You could see at the start of the video it was not covering his body properly. I bet it wasn't fully locked in place.

 

[76LD910]

Why'd you capitalise all the 'he's and 'him's? Are you implying he's God or something?

Force of habit.

He is closer to god than anyone still able to type on a forum though.

 

[BULLY HUNTER_77]

@89elbees They did nothing because they knew that there was nothing they could do. No amount of heroics was going to save that kid after the fact. As rushing to let the passengers out of the ride, I can understand them being preoccupied with the dead sack of fat that remained gurgling on the ground. They had zero training and practice on what to do in case of an accident.

That said, the chad move to have made would have been to continue to let the ride go up and down for the original three more times. People go on those rides for the thrills and adrenaline rush. Can you imagine the terror of riding that three more times just after you saw one of the riders fall to their death and go splat? Should have given them the ultimate Null thrill.

Hell, why not let the ride continue? It had only experienced a ~3% fatality rate up to that point. The other passengers would've been statistically less safe on their drive home.

It's possible the momentum of his mass broke the system.

I doubt it - the safety factors of thrill rides are overdesigned. The hydraulic system could probably retain a normal sized person made out of lead. This sort of technology is used to lift cars, it can handle a few hundred pounds at a few gs like it's nothing.

I think @mindlessobserver is more on the money - the harness was never properly attached so he slipped out.

 

[Caligura]

Officer, I can't ride.

 

[Aidan]

The kid was too fat for the harness. You could see at the start of the video it was not covering his body properly. I bet it wasn't fully locked in place.

I think it has to lock for the literal green light and for the ride to function. I think it was just not pulled in as tight as it should have been and he was too fat for the ride, as you say.
Personally, I always pull those things as tight as possible because part of my brain goes over every way things can go wrong and I can die on those rides. @76LD910 's story about the ship ride is similar to a childhood experience of mine where I felt like I was actually going to die from slipping off the ride because I was so small.

 

[The Emperor Skeksis]

Maybe even with a thrill of knowingly slipping through the safety protocols.

I don't doubt it. He's a teenager at a fair after all. I blame the ride operators 100% for this though. Teenagers are stupid, you have to protect them from themselves, and rides like this are certainly aimed at teenagers and people in their early 20s.

I am womanlet and was too short to ride most cool rides for a very long time. I whined and I raged, and was still told NO. You can't expect a kid to think responsibly, unfortunately.

 

[Shroom King]

Welp, one less future NFL star who can kneel during the national anthem. Not my problem.