14-year-old boy killed in fall from ICON Park’s Orlando Free Fall ride, deputies say

[Guest]

14-year-old boy killed in fall from ICON Park’s Orlando Free Fall ride, deputies say

WWW.ORLANDOSENTINEL.COM

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A 14-year-old boy died late Thursday after falling from the Orlando Free Fall ride at Icon Park, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

 

Some jackal posted video of it in a random twitter reply I was looking at on baseball twitter. Horrific. I can't imagine what the poor family is going through, especially knowing the video is circulating online.

[Dre801]

Yeah. . .I made the mistake of watching the video of him falling.  Big mistake.

 

In some still photos I saw, he didn't look fully secured and I heard he knew this as the ride ascended and was freaking out.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Dre801 said:

Yeah. . .I made the mistake of watching the video of him falling.  Big mistake.

 

In some still photos I saw, he didn't look fully secured and I heard he knew this as the ride ascended and was freaking out.

Yeah he was telling his friend next to him to tell his parents he loved them in case he didn't survive the ride. Can't imagine the terror this poor kid felt.

 

Teen was 'freaking out' on Orlando ride before falling to his death,...

NYPOST.COM

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The 14-year-old boy who fell to his death from an Orlando amusement park ride asked a friend next to him to tell his parents he loved them in case "I don’t make it down,” according to his father.

 

[Kal-El814]

Jesus fucking Christ.

[Joe]

Seems like shitty staff that should have never allowed him on the ride.

[Jason]

17 minutes ago, Joe said:

Seems like shitty staff that should have never allowed him on the ride.

 

Gonna take a wild guess here that the staff who control the line are not paid anywhere remotely in proportion to how dangerous the thing they're in charge of controlling access to is.

[Air_Delivery]

I don't know how true it is but I heard they hired teens to do the checking and the worker that was supposed to do the check was busy flirting with some girl and not paying enough attention.

 

 

tl;dr Florida

[outsida]

So tragic that a young life was ended by negligence. 

[Reputator]

Fuck, this is pretty close to where we live. I never had any desire to go on this, but this is the nightmare scenario I've always feared on rides like this.

[DarkStar189]

I didn't know there was a video out there. Curiosity got the best of me............ yikes. 

[brucoe]

I'm sorry to hear this happened to him. I have zero desire to look for the video to see it actually happen.

[marioandsonic]

I haven't gone to an amusement park in years.  Definitely not going to change that anytime soon now.

[Amazatron]

I remember getting on rides at the amusement park and the high school workers would just run by and briefly touch the harnesses. No way was that shit thorough.

 

Though nowadays, I don't see how every harness doesn't has some sort of sensor that would automatically prevent the ride from going if not properly locked in. Especially since this ride is only a few months old.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Just now, Amazatron said:

I remember getting on rides at the amusement park and the high school workers would just run by and briefly touch the harnesses. No way was that shit thorough.

 

Though nowadays, I don't see how every harness doesn't has some sort of sensor that would automatically prevent the ride from going if not properly locked in. Especially since this ride is only a few months old.

The tech to tell if you’re buckled in is so rare and proprietary there’s no way on this planet they could install that feature and still be able to afford to run the park 

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

The tech to tell if you’re buckled in is so rare and proprietary there’s no way on this planet they could install that feature and still be able to afford to run the park 

 

I was gonna say retrofitting is a lot more expensive than including it on a new install but apparently this park only opened in 2015.

[Joe]

It should at least have a seatbelt backup.

[Amazatron]

7 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

The tech to tell if you’re buckled in is so rare and proprietary there’s no way on this planet they could install that feature and still be able to afford to run the park 

 

Word, only Elon can save us to bring this amazing technology to the masses.

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

I was gonna say retrofitting is a lot more expensive than including it on a new install but apparently this park only opened in 2015.

These seats and buckles get worn out and need replaced often because they are used for 18 hours a day for 4+ months a year (more if you’re in an area that basically year round is usable like Orlando) in direct sunlight

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Amazatron said:

I remember getting on rides at the amusement park and the high school workers would just run by and briefly touch the harnesses. No way was that shit thorough.

 

Though nowadays, I don't see how every harness doesn't has some sort of sensor that would automatically prevent the ride from going if not properly locked in. Especially since this ride is only a few months old.

This ride *did* have exactly such a system. The problem is that the kid was simply too large for the restraint mechanism to actually work, even though the sensors showed that it closed well enough.

 

To domain it as politely as I can, essentially the kid’s backside was large enough that he was basically hanging off the ride, so when it decelerated at the bottom of the drop there was nothing for the ride to grab on to.

 

This is why many rides also have the buckle that goes up between your legs.

[Amazatron]

14 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

This ride *did* have exactly such a system. The problem is that the kid was simply too large for the restraint mechanism to actually work, even though the sensors showed that it closed well enough.

 

To domain it as politely as I can, essentially the kid’s backside was large enough that he was basically hanging off the ride, so when it decelerated at the bottom of the drop there was nothing for the ride to grab on to.

 

This is why many rides also have the buckle that goes up between your legs.

 

Then that system is trash. Closed well enough? The locking mechanism should be pretty easy to detect whether it is engaged or not. If he was too big for it to properly work, then it should detect the malfunction and halt the ride. Clearly it was never engaged for him, thus he was thinking he was going to die all the way up. Terrible.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, Amazatron said:

 

Then that system is trash. Closed well enough? The locking mechanism should be pretty easy to detect whether it is engaged or not. If he was too big for it to properly work, then it should detect the malfunction and halt the ride. Clearly it was never engaged for him, thus he was thinking he was going to die all the way up. Terrible.

I don’t think you understand how these work. There is a upper body harness that presses your body against the seat. There is a position at which the harness is far back enough that it will register as locked into place.

 

The issue here is the kid was too large to ride the ride based on the specs of the company that made it. Because he in effect was not actually seated on the seat, it didn’t matter that his upper body was locked in place. 
 

The issue is the child was too large to ride the ride, but you possibly could have avoided tragedy with the center buckle which likely would not have fit over him and would have made clear that he was over the size limit even if the teenagers running the thing weren’t paying much attention.

[Amazatron]

If the harness is coming down from the top and he is too big, then the harness won’t be able to go low enough to be in locked position. What do you mean by “far back enough”?

 

[ThreePi]

16 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I don’t think you understand how these work. There is a upper body harness that presses your body against the seat. There is a position at which the harness is far back enough that it will register as locked into place.

 

The issue here is the kid was too large to ride the ride based on the specs of the company that made it. Because he in effect was not actually seated on the seat, it didn’t matter that his upper body was locked in place. 
 

The issue is the child was too large to ride the ride, but you possibly could have avoided tragedy with the center buckle which likely would not have fit over him and would have made clear that he was over the size limit even if the teenagers running the thing weren’t paying much attention.

 

If you see pictures of him in the seat before the ride went up you can clearly see that the shoulder restraint is at like a 30-45 degree angle over his body as opposed to vertical like the other riders. On the other riders, the over-the-shoulder restraint basically covers their whole torso and all the way down to their thighs. On this boy, the restrain basically stopped at his stomach. The system should not have registered that as in a "locked" position.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Amazatron said:

If the harness is coming down from the top and he is too big, then the harness won’t be able to go low enough to be in locked position. What do you mean by “far back enough”?

 

The child was kinda pear shaped, so his weight was distributed unevenly in his lower half. His issue wasn’t his upper body not being “locked in”, it is that he essentially wasn’t actually sitting on the seat. This is almost assuredly what worried him as the machine was ascending because he could feel himself slipping down.

 

One of the news articles I was reading the other day had a side angle view of the kid and you can see how far away from the front edge of the seat his knee was. Notice in the photo you linked above they bend of the leg is actually very close to the front edge of the seat? It’s because the thing really keeping you from falling is the seat bottom, and the harness is just pressing your body into the back of the seat.

 

But what happens if half your butt is hanging off the seat? This is why they have the weight limits, which the kid was reportedly 55ish pounds over the limit.

[Amazatron]

So he slid out from under the harness? I just don't see how that is possible if the upper bars and green thing is in position and locked.

 

To me, it seems like he was too big for the upper harness to come down to this position, thus it was loose and not locked in.

 

[ThreePi]

7 minutes ago, Amazatron said:

So he slid out from under the harness? I just don't see how that is possible if the upper bars and green thing is in position and locked.

 

To me, it seems like he was too big for the upper harness to come down to this position, thus it was loose and not locked in.

 

 

The upper part doesn't lock/connect to the bottom. Its more like a rachet system where the locking mechanism is in the hinge.

[Amazatron]

2 minutes ago, ThreePi said:

 

The upper part doesn't lock/connect to the bottom. Its more like a rachet system where the locking mechanism is in the hinge.

 

I get that, I just don't see how he comes out if the upper part is in proper position with the locking mechanism engaged like sblfilms is saying.

[Kal-El814]

32 minutes ago, Amazatron said:

So he slid out from under the harness? I just don't see how that is possible if the upper bars and green thing is in position and locked.

 

To me, it seems like he was too big for the upper harness to come down to this position, thus it was loose and not locked in.

 

In the other pic, imagine that the kid was sitting “on top” of the thing that’s between the adult’s legs. His center of gravity was outside of the confines of the seat and gravity was just going to do its thing. The upper parts start to lock well before they’d secure most people; I normally fidget with them when I get in a ride and am waiting for other people to be seated and pull the harnesses down one click at a time. 

[SilentWorld]

Looking at the picture of the kid before he went up it really looks like the harness didn’t come down far enough. It was probably locked but that seems like a design problem that was considered safe for the ride to go. I can’t see how that could safely restrain anyone at that configuration. 

 

I’m not sure what the rule is on posting the image, I can post it but I’m going to refrain from doing that unless I get confirmation from someone else that it’s kosher with the rules and mods. 

[johnny]

33 minutes ago, Amazatron said:

 

I get that, I just don't see how he comes out if the upper part is in proper position with the locking mechanism engaged like sblfilms is saying.

since he wasn’t fully on the seat the force from the descent and stop shot him downwards. even if the harness was locked he was likely big enough that it didn’t go down very far to stop his body from falling. 

[Kal-El814]

Again, if his center of gravity was outside the seat, given the nature of the ride, the harness being tight enough to keep him in place wouldn’t really have been possible. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Again, if his center of gravity was outside the seat, given the nature of the ride, the harness being tight enough to keep him in place wouldn’t really have been possible. 

This is exactly it. The problem isn’t really the harness mechanism, it’s that the ride has size limits for this very reason that shifting weight forward in the seat bottom (the part of the vehicle that is actually stopping you when the force of gravity is applied to your body) can easily lead to an ejection from the vehicle even if the harness is pressing firmly against your upper body.

 

Imagine you had a really large body builder for which the harness would also not go as vertical as a thin average build person. They wouldn’t be at risk of this scenario because their mass would be distributed further back in the seat bottom, such that it would properly “catch” them when the ride decelerates.

 

The failure here is almost solely on the park for not adhering to the height and weight limits the manufacturer gives.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

My fear of heights has kept me off rides like that for many years. I pretty much stopped at the Tiltawhirl as a kid. 
 

God, I wish I hadn’t read this. Stuff of nightmares. I feel so bad for the kid and his family. Just horrific. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Wait there was no actual, physical latching mechanism as a backup/fail safe ? Just the over the shoulder harness? 
 

good lord