Tyre Sampson, a 14-year-old boy has slipped out of his seat on a drop tower ride and died.
Gatekeepers News reports that Sampson, who was on vacation with a friend’s family died after falling from a theme park ride in Orlando on Thursday night.
He had slipped out of his seat on the Orlando Free Fall ride at the ICON park at around 11 pm.
Sampson was on vacation with his friend’s family who watched helplessly as he plummeted to the ground while the ride dropped at 75mph.
Meanwhile, a photograph of Tyre taken before the ride went into the air shows him sitting with his harness unbuckled and not pulled down to fasten into his seat.
However, it is unclear if the harness was closed fully before the ride went into the air, or if the tour operator checked to ensure he was safely buckled in.
In the meantime, an investigation into the park is now underway. At a press conference on Friday, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said, “It appears to be just a terrible tragedy. We will see moving forward what that results in.”
The ride then went up in the air and halted for around 10 seconds before dropping and the boy fell out of his seat and landed on the ground soon afterwards to the horror of the other riders.
His family paid tribute to him on social media as a ‘gentle giant’.
His step-mother Wendy said, “Tyre was a respectful gentle giant.
“You will be truly missed son,” she said.
Park employees say they initially thought his body was a piece of the ride that had broken off until they saw the boy lying on the ground.
It’s unclear what the minimum height restriction for the ride is or how he could have fallen out of his harness.
It is the second accident at the park in two years. In 2020, a park employee died while working on the StarFlyer ride.
Although the teen was taken to hospital, he succumbed to his injuries, Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.
“At first we thought it was a piece of the ride or whatever until we got a little closer and it was a person laying on the ground.
“Everyone was just panicking and screaming,” park employee Montrey Williams told FOX 35 Orlando.
The ride, the Orlando Free Fall, opened in December 2021, stands at 430ft tall and can accommodate up to 30 people.
How the teenager became free from the ride’s seat belt or how many people were on the tower at the time remains unclear.
Meanwhile, ICON Park on International Drive has not yet commented on the tragedy.
