An Arizona man who reportedly had just seconds to get off a roller coaster after realizing his protective barrier was no longer in place has called for more regulation on amusement parks, after almost lost his life there.
“I only had a few seconds to decide whether to stay or go down,” the still-shaken man said in an interview with 12News, a channel affiliated with NBC News, on condition of anonymity.
On Sunday, the man was at the Castles N’ Coaster amusement park in Phoenix for his niece’s birthday when he allegedly boarded the roller coaster “Desert Storm” (“desert storm” in French), a ride which contains two loops, according to the American media.
Except that when checking the safety barrier located at belly level, the roller coaster operator would not have physically touched the bar to ensure that it was correctly locked, contenting itself with a visual check .
“I pushed on the bar. She looked. She walked away,” the man said, according to NBC.
Only a few seconds later, as the ride climbed the rails, he heard a “click”, before realizing that his protective barrier was no longer in place.
Without a second to lose and seeing that the car was approaching the moment when the roller coaster was about to pick up speed, he would have urgently extricated himself from the moving ride.
The video footage was captured by a relative of the man, who himself shared it with the American media.
But even seeing the man get off the wagon, nothing would have been done to stop the ride, in which there were also children.
«[L’opératrice] should have been watching that car and when she saw me get out she should have been able to press an emergency button […] I think the most frightening thing is their negligence and their absolute recklessness throughout this affair,” he said.
In Arizona, amusement parks are unregulated, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, while the law only requires an annual inspection of rides.
“This needs to change 100%. I think all amusement parks that essentially have people’s lives in their hands need to be better regulated,” he told 12News, after coming so close to a disaster.
