At Sydney Royal Easter Show, a popular children's ride, Free Fall, was shut down after a four-year-old boy was left unrestrained in his seat and was at risk of being flung into the air and badly injured.
The "Free Fall Ride" was about to launch on Sunday afternoon when shocked onlookers alerted the operators that the restraint was not locked into place on the seat of Tristran Curtis, the four-year-old boy.
Unlocked restraint
Daily Mail reported that online photos show that Curtis still had the restraint above his head. The restraint should be locked on the seat. The other children sitting next to him had their restraints firmly secured.
According to Sky Boustani Curtis, the mother, the operator hit the emergency stop after the onlookers screamed to stop the ride. However, she noted that the operator did not get out of the booth, so another father got near her son to ask him to climb down to him.
She said she and her husband were not tall enough to reach their son.
She also said that their son had autism, and it was difficult to know how he was feeling after the ordeal.
Warning to parents
The witnesses posted on Facebook the incident with a warning to parents to "be careful."
Eva Levy, who witnessed the incident, shared the photo of the young Curtis on Facebook. The picture showed that Curtis was unrestrained, and the harness was still up in the air. She posted that the patrons had to scream for the operator to stop the ride, as per Skynews.
She then cautioned other parents to "be careful," as operators did not check if the riders were secured before the ride took off. She said the operators were not doing their job and duty of care.
Her post got more than 3,000 responses and was shared more than 2,700 times.
Many claimed that they took off their children on any rides after the incident and would no longer bother going to the show again.
Sydney Royal Easter Show's response
The organizers launched an investigation into the incident.
The spokesperson of the organizers said that they had to shut down the kids' Free Fall ride following a reported issue with a harness. She added that the ride would not operate again until a full investigation had been completed and specialist engineers had approved the ride.
In March, Tyre Sampson, a 14-year-old boy, died after falling off the Orlando Free Fall ride at ICON Park. According to WFTV 9, state investigators said it could be months before they would know what exactly went wrong that fateful night.
The initial incident report indicated that the ride did not function, and Sampson was beyond the weight limit set by the manufacturer.
Recently, a team of forensic engineers from Quest Engineering and Failure Analysis have been inspecting the ride and is doing a failure analysis to see what led to Sampson's fall and death.
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