NOTE:This story contains content that may be disturbing to some readers. Please read at your own discretion. Last month, Tyre Sampson fell to his death when he slipped out of his seat on an Orlando, Fla., drop tower amusement park ride.
Officials now say “misadjustments” may have been a contributing factor in Sampson’s fatal plunge from the Free Fall attraction at ICON Park on March 24.
Sampson, 14, had been visiting the park with a friend’s family. On Monday, Nikki Fried, commissioner of the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said engineers determined the park’s ride operator “made manual adjustments to the ride resulting in it being unsafe.” Read more: University to pay professor $400K after disciplining him for misgendering student “Manual adjustments had been made to the sensor for the seat in question that allowed the harness-to-restraint opening to be almost double that of the normal restraint-opening range,” Fried said at a news conference. “These misadjustments allowed the safety lights to illuminate, improperly satisfying the ride’s electronic safety mechanisms that allowed the ride to operate even though Mr.
Sampson was not properly secured in the seat,” she said. Fried told press conference attendees the Free Fall ride would be closed permanently.