Night of terror on the Ferris wheel
Drama at the park
A FAMILY of five fell two metres to the ground and 20 others had to be rescued by the Suva Fire Brigade in a night of terror after a Ferris wheel developed a mechanical fault at the Hibiscus Festival at Albert, Suva.
An article published in
The Fiji Times on March 5, 1990, stated hundreds of people watched in horror as Vincent Peter, his wife and three daughters clung for their lives on an unhinged seat that slowly fell to the ground as the faulty Ferris wheel rolled to a stop.
Mrs Peter told The Fiji Times she was thankful for her family being saved by the Suva Fire Brigade during the hour-long ordeal.
Mr Peter on the other hand was disappointed that the conductors did nothing to help the troubled family.
“We are lucky to be alive because as soon as the support for our seat broke, an unhinged iron rod started strangling me and my daughter, Angelene, who was on my lap,” he said.
“We were right at the top when the support broke and an iron rod immediately poked into my stomach like a spear.
“We just clung on and the operators of the Ferris wheel, who had put five of us in a seat made for three, did nothing to help us.
“We are lucky we did not lose our grip when we were right at the top when the fault occurred.”
The wheel reportedly rolled slowly to a stop with the Peter family just more than two metres above the ground.
“We just could not do anything then and slowly lost our grip on the tilting seat to fall,” he told this newspaper.
The news editor of Radio Fiji, George Williams, his wife and children were also stuck on top of the Ferris wheel about 13 metres above the ground.
“It was a terrible experience as we were just stuck up there and the operators did not do anything to either help us or to get help,” he said.
“In fact, if it was not for the police, I think we would have died,” Mrs Williams added.
“The operators were just pulling the rope which runs around the Ferris wheel and this just worsened the situation.”
Police officers were able to control the shocked crowd with three extra fire engines rushing towards the scene. One fire engine managed to drive through the crowd to the Ferris wheel to use its ladder to bring down the trapped passengers in an hour-long operation.
Owner of the Ferris wheel, Mohan Singh, said a bolt of the support on one of the seats had broken, letting it to swing loose.
The crossbar also broke open putting more pressure on the iron bars running around the wheel.
Mr Singh told The Fiji Times the Ferris wheel was 17 years old and went through inspection by the factory operator.
Mr Vincent said he was going to sue the operator for damages.