Half-term horror at theme park
» He survives Twister plunge » Same ride killed girl in 2001
A HELPLESS mum screamed as she watched her six-year-old son plunge 30 feet from a roller coaster.
Hundreds of parents and children on half term saw the accident on a ride that 18 years ago claimed the life of a student.
It is believed the boy, who survived the ordeal, fell from a section of track where a camera snaps thrill-seekers.
It has been suggested he was standing up – a theory that could be confirmed by images from the camera.
Mark Charnley, 46, was waiting to join the ride with daughter Megan,10, when he saw yesterday’s accident.
He said: “I saw this lad hanging out of the carriage backwards.
“He seemed to be there for a couple of seconds and then he fell. His mother was with him and she was hysterical.
“He’s obviously got himself out of his restraint somehow.” Lara-Susan James, was also in the queue at Lightwater Valley, near Ripon, North Yorkshire.
She said: “We heard a girl screaming, and I mean screaming.
“I thought she was scared of the ride but she was hysterical.
“I saw the operator apply the emergency stop and my husband pointed to the fallen kid on the ground.”
Danny Jaques, 38, at the park with his wife and two daughters, said the boy, who was conscious, was taken to the air ambulance on a spinal-support board. He added: “Somebody said he had been standing up.” The Twister was closed but the park remained open. Last night the boy was in Leeds General Infirmary but his injuries are not thought life-threatening. Lightwater Valley bills the Twister as a “spinning roller coaster which gives an awesome, fun-packed experience for all the family”.
It adds: “The track is full of seriously tight turns, giving riders the impression that they might
not make it around the next corner, with the threat of plummeting into the treetops being a source of tension for parents (and amusement for the kids)!”
Accompanied riders on the Twister must be at least four feet tall.
In 2001, Durham University student Gemma Savage, 20, died after two cars collided on the ride, which was then called the Treetop Twister.
Maker and supplier, Paris-based Reverchon Industries, was found guilty of failing to ensure its safe design and construction and failing to give information necessary to ensure it was safe.
Yesterday Lightwater Valley said: “Following an incident, a child is receiving treatment at a local hospital.
“Emergency services have confirmed the child was conscious when they arrived and his condition is not believed to be life threatening.”