If you’ve ever spent any amount of time at a theme park or amusement park, then there’s a safe bet you’ve been on a ride when it stopped working. It’s not uncommon for a ride to stop every now and then. Usually, it’s a brief inconvenience before things get back to normal. In a worst-case scenario, you may need to be evacuated from the ride. However, a recent roller coaster stop at a Texas entertainment venue made the already thrilling coaster a bit more terrifying.
The incident took place at Cotaland, an amusement park adjunct to the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) racing venue outside of Austin, Texas. The park includes Circuit Breaker, Texas’s only tilt coaster. Unfortunately for two riders last night, the tilt feature malfunctioned, leading to them being stuck in a vertical position over 100 feet in the air. The image was captured on Twitter.
SCARY SIGHT: Two men were spotted holding on for dear life at the peak of a 130-foot drop after a roller coaster malfunctioned in Texas. The pair was suspended at a terrifying 90-degree angle facing straight toward the ground.A frantic relative called 911 as the riders hung… pic.twitter.com/BbaPrIlcvQDecember 22, 2025
It was just before 9:00 pm that the Circuit Breaker stopped. It was just after 10:00 PM that the two men, identified by People as Matthew Cantu, 24, and Nicholas Sanchez, 20, were released by authorities. It’s unclear exactly how long the pair were stuck on the ride, but according to People, emergency services weren’t on site 30 minutes following the stoppage, leading family members of the two men to call 911, resulting in EMS arriving on scene.
A tilt coaster is defined by having a piece of horizontal track that will lock the ride vehicle in place, and then tilt downward on a pivot point where it will meet the rest of the track, before releasing the vehicle. This is where the malfunction occurred, as the vehicle never released from its vertical position. It appears the problem was with the sensor that recognizes that the track is properly engaged.
There have certainly been cases of people stuck on rides for extended periods, but it's rarely something quite so physically taxing, just annoying as hell. Outside of just being forced to look 130 feet straight down until somebody comes and gets you out, it’s not actually good for your body to be stuck in that position. Upon being checked out, Cantu reportedly said he felt lightheaded and “symptoms consistent with blood pooling,” while Sanchez reported leg numbness. Both men declined medical treatment at the scene or transportation to the hospital.
Roller coasters are obviously some of the roughest attractions to have a malfunction. Because of their inherent design to feel dangerous, things actually can be dangerous if they don’t work. We’ve heard plenty of stories of roller coaster injuries when things don’t work properly. There have even been deaths on roller coasters in the worst circumstances. Luckily, in this case, it seems that all the men ended up with at the end was a wild story.
