A 17-year-old girl was hospitalized after falling from a swing ride at Canada’s Wonderland on Thursday.
According to reports, ride operators reported a guest injury shortly at around 2:35 p.m. The teen fell between 20 and 40 feet from the ‘Swing of the Century’ ride and suffered minor injuries; she was taken to Sunnybrook Hospital as a precaution.
According to Canada’s Wonderland, the Swing of the Century is one of the 26 original rides located on-site when the Park opened in 1981. It takes up to 48 riders through the air in individual seats that are raised and lowered at a soothing pace.
The chair-swing ride has free-hanging seats suspended from an elevated, rotating, and slanting tower. Riders rotate in a circular motion as the tower begins to rise. A lap bar and a ‘between-the-legs’ safety belt secure each rider.
The Technical Standards and Safety Authority investigated the ride and determined there was no issues with it — but some on Reddit are speculating as to what happened.
“I was on one of the previous rides and this is my account of what occurred. This person was 100% horsing around, she had both legs extended onto an empty chair in front of her as the ride started,” one Reddit user said about the incident.
“The safety bar buckle was unbuckled, I’m assuming for her to reach the seat in front of her with her feet. As the ride accelerated, the distance between the two seats spread, and she began slipping through her seat until through it completely. She hung onto her seat by her hands for around 2-3 rotations, as everyone screamed at the operators for the ride to stop. She fell around 20ft from the air as the ride was still spinning. Thank goodness she is conscious, let this be a lesson to everyone not to mess around during rides.”
The user added that the ride was stopped mid-cycle, with all riders stranded in the air watching from above as medical worked on her.
“It took a police officer 5 minutes to arrive, 12 minutes for EMS and 17 minutes for a stretcher to arrive. She was not ambulatory, and on the ground for a good 25+ minutes.”
