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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(link/archive)​

Teen was ‘freaking out’ on Orlando ride before falling to his death, father says​

By
Patrick Reilly
March 25, 2022 8:30pm
Updated

Father of teen who died after fall from Icon Park ride speaks out

The 14-year-old boy who fell to his death from an Orlando amusement park ride asked the friend strapped in next to him to tell his parents he loved them in case “I don’t make it down,” according to his devastated father.
Yarnell Samson said his son Tyre felt unsafe as soon as the “Orlando Free-Fall” ride at ICON Park began going up.
“When the ride took off, that’s when he was feeling uncomfortable.
He was like ‘this thing is moving,’ you know what I’m saying. And he was like ‘what’s going on?’” Samson told Fox 35.
“And that’s when he started freaking out,” the dad continued.
The teen then told the friend beside him: “If I don’t make it down tell … Please tell my mama and daddy I love them.”
“For him to say something like that, he must have felt something,” Samson told the outlet.

His son tragically plummeted from the ride when it was about halfway down its 430-foot descent. He died after being rushed to a local hospital.
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.

“This one particular ride decided, ‘yeah, we’re gonna take you, come on, get on,’ when nobody else allowed him to get on the rides,” Samson told the Orlando station.
“So I wanna know what happened between now and then that made them say, ‘come on, you can get on this ride,” he added.
Tyre was on the attraction with two of his best friends. The boys had traveled to Orlando from Missouri.

An honor roll student and football player, Samson said his son had hopes of playing in the NFL.
“This should never happen to nobody else’s child ever again,” he said. “And if I have something to do with it, it never will ever again.”
The “Orlando Free Fall” had just opened at the end of December. Standing at 430 feet, it boasts itself as the world’s tallest free-standing drop tower, according to the park’s website. The ride holds 30 passengers as it ascends, rotates around the tower and then tilts to face the ground before free falling at more than 75 miles per hour.

The attraction has over-the shoulder restraint harnesses, with two hand grips at the chest level, that riders pull down and are released automatically at the end of the ride.
An inspector on Friday could be seen sitting in a ride seat with the security harness over his shoulders as another inspector took measurements.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said the tragedy does not appear to be an intentional act. An investigation is ongoing.

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I'm sorry, but why the fuck did this dumbass keep trying to go on rides after every single one told him "nah nigga you're too fat."
 
He doesn’t look 14, is this accurate?
He didn't even look like a citizen.


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Ya'll really think this ride was ride was safe for SIR Boobsalot ShitshisBritches? He looks like a less charismatic Harvey Price.
 
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Side note: Does anyone know if any videos exist of the Verrückt water slide decapitation incident? Watching a video of the ride experience knowing that the metal grating they're zooming past decapitated a boy is crazy.
Did you know they put him in a boat with two ridiculously obese women? That was all over discussion when the accident happened but since then it's been wiped from the internet. The ride was unsafe and stupidly designed anyway, but those fatasses helped launch that poor kid.
 
Did you know they put him in a boat with two ridiculously obese women? That was all over discussion when the accident happened but since then it's been wiped from the internet. The ride was unsafe and stupidly designed anyway, but those fatasses helped launch that poor kid.
It's actually mentioned in the wikipedia page.

Reportedly, Caleb, who weighed 74 pounds (34 kg), had been allowed to sit in the front of the raft, rather than between the two women accompanying him — one weighed 275 pounds (125 kg), while the other weighed 197 pounds (89 kg). This created an uneven weight distribution, which some experts concluded may have contributed to the raft going airborne, though the total weight of 546 pounds (248 kg) was less than the maximum recommended weight of 550 pounds (250 kg).
Basically if they had put one of the women in front the raft wouldn't have caught air the way it did.
 
imagine being that afraid to die, i've been on every ride at disney and universal
Even the scummiest parks rarely ever have deaths but those two are some of the best maintained parks in the world. This place sounds like its Morey's Piers levels of fucked (so still as safe as driving to work every morning but less safe than bigger/better parks.)
 
I wonder if there's other similar rides by the contractor that made this.
But yeah ICON Park is basically just this stretch of stuff on International Drive sorta near Universal. Not quite as trashy as IDrive Fun Spot or the Old Town one
 
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.
On August 7, 2016, Caleb Schwab, the 10-year-old son of Kansas state representative
I wonder why the Verruckt fatality got such a huge payout...
Anyway given how it's a major park and there's a video of the death I think the park is going to give them a few million to settle things. But 20 million seems to be a bit much, especially when we don't know a lot about what happened yet.
 
I like the old wooden ones. Just something about feeling like your fillings are going to rattle out. Wondering whether the creaking and groaning is normal or you're about to end up on liveleak.
I kek'd at the liveleak part.
I wonder why the Verruckt fatality got such a huge payout...
Anyway given how it's a major park and there's a video of the death I think the park is going to give them a few million to settle things. But 20 million seems to be a bit much, especially when we don't know a lot about what happened yet.
Kid got on a ride that wasn't made for his size/weigh and was barred from entering the other rides because of it.

It could be that they talked the operator into letting him on the ride or the op was too stoned/underpaid to care about safety rules.
 
Not impossible. I went to high school with a guy who had a full beard in middle school.
Yes, but DaVondreeus was 19 and had been held back a few years.
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.
Best comment I've read here in a long time, and that's out of all the world class shitposting I see on a daily basis.
 
I wonder if there's other similar rides by the contractor that made this.
But yeah ICON Park is basically just this stretch of stuff on International Drive sorta near Universal. Not quite as trashy as IDrive Fun Spot or the Old Town one
Yes. The manufacturer is Funtime. They make these and also the Slingshot type rides. They also happen to own a number of Florida attractions including ICON.
 
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interesting to read that his father and other attractions knew not to let him on cause of his weight/size...curious to learn on how he was able to get on this ride...was it peer pressure from his friends? Guy had to know that if he couldn't ride other rides, he probably couldn't ride this one...

was the staff afraid of confrontation in fear of claims of racism going viral? Ride operators would've been fucked either way, cause social media.

Combo of both?
 
I wonder why the Verruckt fatality got such a huge payout...
Anyway given how it's a major park and there's a video of the death I think the park is going to give them a few million to settle things. But 20 million seems to be a bit much, especially when we don't know a lot about what happened yet.
Vericht was made in house. Without benefit of professional Engineers. It was like a modern day Action Park attraction. When investigators did the math they were shocked at just how unsafe it was.

This will not be that as there will be finger pointing between manufacturers design and operator error or negligence. That the operator was a corporate subsidiary of the manufacturer will make it messier.

At the end of the day, the greasy kid running the ride will be hung out to dry. Every other attraction turned fatty mcmanbewbs away due to his size and weight. This kid didn't. And he's not gonna have a good answer for why not.
 
interesting to read that his father and other attractions knew not to let him on cause of his weight/size...curious to learn on how he was able to get on this ride...was it peer pressure from his friends? Guy had to know that if he couldn't ride other rides, he probably couldn't ride this one...

was the staff afraid of confrontation in fear of claims of racism going viral? Ride operators would've been fucked either way, cause social media.

Combo of both?
Theoretically a free-fall ride like this should be more accommodating for large or fat people, since acceleration is only in one direction (up/down) unlike more complex rides. The deceleration should push the passengers into the seat, not out of it.

From looking at the footage, I'd guess it was a combination of:
- The restraint not being ratcheted in all the way due to the guy's size, providing enough space to slip out
- The guy simply being too large in girth for the seat, meaning that his center of gravity was not directly over the seat as it should have been
- The guy freaking out as the ride came down, if he was flipping out and squirming that could have been the final straw that made him slip through the gap in the restraint. You can see his legs kicking wildly in the video, and he apparently was very nervous according to the guy next to him.

At the end of the day, the greasy kid running the ride will be hung out to dry. Every other attraction turned fatty mcmanbewbs away due to his size and weight. This kid didn't. And he's not gonna have a good answer for why not.
If they didn't give him weight/size limits to enforce, then his defense will be "I put the guy in the seat like usual, the restraint locked and the light on the control panel turned green, which meant everything was fine". He's definitely fucked if he ignored the rules though.
 
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