Over in Southern California, 18 amusement park guests found themselves trapped in mid-air. A Zipper ride decided to stop functioning in the middle of its circuit. The incident happened at the Thousand Oaks Conejo Valley Days carnival. The Ventura County Fire Department explained the tense situation in a Facebook post.
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"Sunday night, VCFD firefighters responded to a technical rescue at the Conejo Creek Park as approximately 18 people were trapped on an amusement park ride. Firefighters were able to successfully rescue all riders, by manually lowering the amusement ride. No injuries reported. Fire crews were on scene for about 35 minutes. 911 call received at 8:05 pm and all riders were rescued from the ride by 8:35 pm."
Per Fox News, the carnival operator, Kastl Amusements, spoke out about the incident. "The computer control system on the Zipper ride detected an anomaly and stopped the ride's operation as it was designed to do," said Kay Kastl. "The passengers remained safely secured, were not upside down, and were in no danger at any time."
The Kastl Amusements owner continued. "The ride operators began to unload the ride's 12 vehicles in accordance with the manufacturer's recommended procedure. The evacuation procedure, while seemingly slow, is carefully designed to maintain the balance of the ride vehicles and keeps the passengers safe at all times."
An Amusement Park Ride Malfunctioned, Leaving Riders Suspended In Mid-Air
An interesting deviation from what the Ventura County Fire Department shared quickly emerged. According to Kastl Amusements, authorities were "on-hand but did not assist." Rather, staff assisted guests off the ride. "All passengers were unloaded safely by ride staff with no reported injuries," Kastl said. Kastl Amusements is presently investigating the Zipper ride to determine the cause of the incident.
Ultimately, everyone was shaken up by the incident. Compared to a roller coaster stopping in the middle of a loop and leaving people upside down, being up in the air casually doesn't seem so bad! Also, did anyone else not know those "old-school whistle-looking rides" had a specific name? I tell you, you learn so many things through covering certain stories! This story, sadly, makes me that much more afraid of those pop-up carnivals they build in, like, less than a week.
