Victim’s family wants to know if negligence related to his size led to amusement ride death
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A rising middle school football player in Missouri, only 14 but already 6 feet, 5 inches tall and well over 300 pounds, Tyre Sampson fell to his death from a towering Florida amusement ride. Lawyers for his family want to know if negligence about his size, or other factors, played a role.
“This young man, he was athletic and he was big. He had no way of knowing,” said Bob Hilliard, a Texas attorney who represents Tyre’s mother, Nekia Dodd. “This is going to be an issue of a lack of supervision and lack of training. A straight-up negligence case.”
Investigators on Saturday continued to examine what happened Thursday night when Sampson dropped out of his seat from a 430foot, free-fall amusement park ride that is taller than the Statue of Liberty in the heart of Orlando’s tourist district.
The ride takes patrons up to that height, tilts so they face the ground for a moment or two, and then plummets toward the ground at speeds of 75 mph or more.
Already the size of an NFL offensive lineman, Tyre aspired to play pro football, according to his family.
“That was his dream, and he was on his way,” Wendy Wooten, his stepmother, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He had so many scouts looking at him. He was going to be a great football player.”