Freefall Ride Accident Ends in Tragedy

On March 25th, Tyre Sampson fell from the freefall ride, at the ICON park in Orlando, Florida, bringing into question the staff at the park and the safety of the ride itself.

Sampson was on a trip to Orlando from Missouri with his friend when he went to the park. He and his friend got on the freefall ride, a ride that sends riders up an almost 400-foot tower before launching them down again. He fell out of his seat during the ride’s descent.

Recent evidence says that Sampson was too heavy to have been on the ride in the first place. The weight limit on the freefall was 287 pounds, but the family says Sampson weighed about 380 pounds and was turned down from 2 rides beforehand. The lack of seatbelts is another issue because the seat and the over-the-shoulder harness are the only things keeping riders on the ride and multiple riders asked before the ride if there were any seatbelts just for the employee to say there were none. Right before the ride, the staff manually loosened the harness and adjusted the ride sensors so that Sampson would be able to get on the ride, making it unsafe for him to have been on the ride in the first place. 

The ride has been closed for investigation but Sampson’s family is saying that it’s not enough and are protesting for the ride to be removed and shut down permanently. They filed a lawsuit on Monday, April 25th against the park, saying that his death could have easily been prevented, to shut down the ride to prevent other tragedies like this one from happening again.    

By Kymbree Ogle-Forbes