ORLANDO, Fla. — State and local officials are investigating after a 14-year-old boy visiting Orlando from Missouri fell to his death late Thursday while riding the Orlando Free Fall at ICON Park, a tragedy captured in a horrific video that was widely shared online in the hours that followed.
“We can’t imagine the pain and anguish that his family must be going through,” Orange County Sheriff John Mina told reporters during an afternoon press conference Friday. “Our victim advocates have been in contact with the family and helping them through this ordeal.”
Mina identified the boy as Tyre Sampson. Deputies responded to the attraction at 11:12 p.m. Thursday, taking Tyre to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children where he was pronounced dead, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Mina said “absolutely no criminal charges” have been filed, though the agency is still determining whether the incident was an accident or an intentional act.
“Based on all of our preliminary investigation and information, it appears to be a terrible tragedy, but our investigation is still open,” he said. “All other aspects of the investigation, as far as the ride itself and safety of the ride, that’s investigated by the (Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs).”
John Stine, sales director with the Slingshot Group of Companies, which owns the Orlando Free Fall, said the ride would remain closed indefinitely until the investigations have concluded.
“We are devastated that this happened, and our hearts go out to the family,” Stine said. “We are cooperating with all other investigations at this time to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Erin Moffet, a spokesperson with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said the division was investigating the death and had inspectors at the attraction Friday morning. She declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.
“I offer my deepest condolences for the family of the 14-year-old boy who died following the tragic incident at Icon Park,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said in a statement. “I look to receive more information about what happened in the incident and what will be done to prevent it from ever happening again.”
Mina said Tyre was staying with the family of a friend on his visit to Central Florida. The East St. Louis School District in Illinois said his family was believed to be relocating there for the upcoming school year, and a coach for East St. Louis Senior High School’s football team shared photos of Tyre in a Facebook post mourning his death.
“We understand that his family had plans to move to the East St. Louis School District prior to the start of high school,” said Sydney Stigge-Kaufman, the school district’s executive communications director, in an email. “We are very sad to hear of his tragic loss of life and wish the family grace and healing during this difficult time.”
Disturbing videos of the fall and its aftermath went viral on social media overnight, attracting national headlines. The footage showed Tyre falling out of his seat as the ride slowed after its drop, sending the teenager hurtling into the ground as shocked onlookers screamed.
Records released Friday by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which inspects rides at smaller amusement parks statewide, showed the drop tower passed its initial inspection Dec. 20 with no issues found.
The attraction opened Dec. 28. Under state law, its next inspection would have been scheduled around six months later.
Brian Avery, an independent ride safety consultant and lecturer at the University of Florida, said it is difficult to tell what led to the accident from the publicly available information.
“It could be a multitude of issues, either operator failure in some capacity, it could be a patron-related failure in some capacity, it could be a manufacturer defect (or) it could be a maintenance issue,” he said. “It will take some time to unpack through a series of investigations.”
Video of the incident showed an attendant talking to a group seated on the ride before it began to climb.
“You know how high you’re going? 430 feet,” he told them. “Coming down — 75 miles per hour.”
One woman asked why the ride had only harnesses to strap them in and no additional seatbelt.
“Seat belt? There ain’t any,” the attendant said.
The video showed ride-goers being slowly lifted by the tower then quickly plummeting down. As the ride was slowing down, Tyre flew out of his chair and hit the ground, the video showed.
The screams of joy from ride-goers quickly turned into cries of terror.
“Call the ambulance!” one woman yelled. Others screamed, “Get us out! Get us out!
As one employee rushed to help the boy, another appeared to ask the ride attendants in charge if they had checked the boy’s seat.
“You guys are sure you checked him?” she asked.
“We did, yeah,” they responded.
Orange County Fire Rescue released several 911 calls related to the incident, including from one man who told a dispatcher he saw the moment Tyre hit the ground.
“The (ride) went down to drop, and like, when it got closer to the bottom, when it hit the brakes, this guy fell right out of his seat — and bam, straight through the chair and just flopped,” he said on the call.
Another caller, who was out of breath, told a dispatcher that the “ride was going and during the middle of the ride, the guy just came off.” The dispatcher began to give instructions for CPR, but the caller said Tyre was already dead.
”He’s face down,” he said. “There’s blood everywhere. He’s not breathing. I’ve checked his pulse, there’s no pulse.”
Other accidents on similar attractions have been caused by harness failure or riders slipping through the restraints for reasons like not meeting height or weight requirements, Avery said.
In September, a 6-year-old girl died while riding a drop tower attraction in Colorado that did not have shoulder restraints, a standard safety measure on drop tower rides, according to the Denver Post. An accident report found she died due to “multiple operator errors” after workers did not notice she was sitting on top of her seatbelt, the Aspen Daily News reported.
While over-the-shoulder harnesses, like those used on the Orlando Free Fall, are the “generally accepted practice” for drop tower-type rides, ride manufacturers often install a secondary safety mechanism like a seatbelt that attaches the harness to the seat, Avery said. If the harness system fails, the safety latch or seatbelt would prevent it from rising.
Avery and his father, Bill Avery, have been advocating for “secondary failsafe mechanisms” on amusement rides for decades, he said.
But sometimes operators forgo these backup safety measures because the extra time it takes to secure and check them can result in fewer riders per hour, he said. He added that there are no state or industry standards that require rides to have these secondary mechanisms.
“If you look at the totality of the number of riders, it’s a fairly safe industry, but you never want to be that person that is involved (in an accident) because obviously, it can be a very catastrophic event,” he said.
Caution tape surrounded the Orlando free-fall ride Friday morning.
The seats for the ride were stopped near the top of the attraction and the park was nearly empty apart from tourists walking by. Many stopped below the 430-foot ride as they passed, taking pictures and staring.
John Garbecki, 66, who is on vacation from Rhode Island to watch March Madness, shook his head as he stood below the ride.
“I passed by it yesterday afternoon and thought, ‘Oh no way I would get on that unless you wanted me to have a heart attack,’” Garbecki said.
Garbecki said he didn’t hear any sirens from his hotel room but was saddened when he found out this morning.
“I just feel bad for his family and it’s really a tragedy,” Garbecki said.
Another tourist, Christian Cabazon, stopped to take a picture of the ride. Cabazon, 53, is on a business trip from Chile. Cazabon said his heart is with the boy’s family and hopes they will keep the ride closed indefinitely.
“I walked passed it last night and took a quick picture for my daughters then on my way back to my hotel I heard sirens,” Cazabon said. “I found out this morning and can’t believe it happened.”
A mother and daughter vacationing from Ecuador walked to the black fence on the inside perimeter of the ride to look for blood.
“We saw it on the news this morning so (we) took a walk from our hotel to see if we could see anything,” Catherine Sotomayor, 37, said.
Sotomayor and her mother are staying in the hotel right across the street from the ride.
“We heard sirens but, knowing what happened now, I would have expected to hear more,” Sotomayor said.
The Orlando Free Fall tower rises 430 feet as the world’s tallest free-standing drop tower, according to the attraction.
Thirty riders sit in the ride as it rises to the top, rotates around the tower, then tilts at 30 degrees to face the ground before a brief moment of free falling, Ritchie Armstrong, CEO of Slingshot Group, told the Orlando Sentinel in January, shortly after opening the attraction.
“It falls down free, detached from the tower, reaching speeds of up to 75 miles per hour before this beautiful magnetic braking system gives them a nice, smooth, slow stop, straight back down to the ground,” Armstrong said.
In 2020, another death occurred in ICON Park when 21-year-old worker Jacob David Kaminsky fell from the StarFlyer attraction — also owned by the SlingShot Group. Kaminsky was climbing the 450-foot spinning swing ride to conduct a safety check when he accidentally fell from about 50 to 60 feet.
SlingShot Group, which has been operating amusement rides in Florida since 2000, also has attractions in Kissimmee, Daytona Beach and Panama City Beach.
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(Orlando Sentinel staff writers Cristóbal Reyes and Desiree Stennett contributed.)
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