Around 9:00pm on Thursday, October 24, 5 people aged 14-39 were injured (2 Critically) when a ride malfunctioned at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh, NC.
The ride, Vortex, is owned and operated by Family Attraction Amusements of Valdosta, GA.
Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said that preliminary reports indicated that “the ride had stopped, and they were fixing to offload when the ride started off again, but that is preliminary.” He noted that the police or the NC Department of Labor were not wanting to speculate as to what caused the ride malfunction before they had concrete details.
Dolores Quisenberry, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina department of labor, noted that rides at the North Carolina State fair are inspected three times a day and that would be part of the investigation.
As of Friday, the investigation was ongoing, details of why the ride malfunctioned were still unavailable. The ride will remain closed, but other rides at the fair will continue to operate as normal.
Family Attraction Amusements has been linked to three separate ride accidents in Georgia in the past, according to WRAL Investigative Reporter Cullen Browder.
It was the first major incident at the North Carolina State fair since 2002, when a midway worker was thrown from a platform of a ride and killed when he was struck by the legs of a passenger on the ride.
What type of ride is this?