Florida Girl Falls 100 Feet in Amusement Park Ride With No Net
The story of this 12-year-old girl from Florida shows what can happen when the operator at a Wisconsin amusement park is negligent. The girl is in stable but critical condition after she fell more than 100 feet from a platform. The safety net was not put in place and she hit the ground.
Teagan Marti on Friday, July 31, was at Extreme World in Wisconsin Dells. She had seen the Terminal Velocity ride on the Travel Channel. In the ride, the person is raised to a platform and then enters a free-fall ideally hitting the safety net below. But when the girl left the platform the net was still on the ground. The ride operator had released her prematurely.
CBS News reports the ride operator had to leave his job for mental health reasons. The park admitted that it was “human error” that caused her injuries.
The girl survived and is hospitalized with 10 fractures to her back and one in her skull. Teagan’s father is a doctor and when he saw her on the ground he was certain she was dead. He performed CPR at the scene and brought the girl back to life. She has yet to speak, so any brain damage has yet to be assessed.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports about four people die at amusement park rides every year and 7,000 are injured.
Legally, you were supposed to be at least 14 to ride this attraction, but the girl’;s parents had signed a release form giving their consent to get on the ride. However, in 2009 the Florida Supreme Court ruled 4-1 that parents do not have the right to sign away their child’ right to take a liability issue to court when they sign a standard release form.
Florida personal injury lawyers would like to remind you to be extremely cautious when on amusement park rides. Our prayers go out to this girl and her family for her complete recovery.
