![]() “We were screaming and this guy is not paying any attention to us. “The only thing that I could do is just hold onto my nephew because literally right next to me – it just kept going around and around,” Hepp said. Hepp was on the ride with her 10-year-old nephew. ![]() The ride was upside down when Hepp says she found herself pressed against a plexiglass-like barrier in the front row seat. Marylola Hepp says she was riding the Ring of Fire at the Manatee County Fair when she slid out from under the safety bar. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumers Services Bureau of Fair Rides and Inspections has launched an investigation. (WFLA) - State officials say they are looking into an incident that a mother of four says left her injured over the weekend at the Manatee County Fair. Sherry McKay, who has a contract to provide amusement rides to the Island County Fair through 2005, said she promised her late husband that if anything ever happened to him she would "keep the show going."īut, McKay said, she won't be using the Super Loop 2.MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. She said he sometimes worked on rides while they were in operation. McKay's wife, Sherry McKay, co-owner of Paradise Amusements, said her late husband had been around carnival rides for much of his life and was experienced in their maintenance. "I'm so extremely familiar with that ride, but as far as being any extra careful - this was an accident." Setting up for the Monroe fair yesterday, Hall said he wasn't taking any special precautions. ![]() "It's extremely popular with mostly older kids." Hall said that, unlike on the Super Loop 2, riders on the Ring of Fire are strapped into their seats by shoulder belts, not enclosed in cages. Nobody would work on the ride while it's running." ![]() "We would listen for the noise but not with people on the ride. "Everybody is thinking, 'Are we doing the right thing? Are we being safe?' " Hall said. Jim Hall, assistant manager of Butler Amusements, the Beaverton, Ore., company supplying amusement rides at the Evergreen State Fair, said he knew Doug McKay for a long time and was shocked that he would fix the ride while it was in motion and packed with people. L&I officials say repairing an amusement ride while it is in motion is dangerous. The accident has been called a fluke by the state Department of Labor and Industries (L&I), Island County Sheriff's Department and fair officials. The accident was witnessed by hundreds of fairgoers, including those on the ride at the time. He was dragged into the air by the ride and then fell about 40 feet, landing on an aluminum fence. The "Ring of Fire" ride at the Monroe fair is similar to and made by the same manufacturer as the "Super Loop 2" at last weekend's Island County Fair in Langley.ĭoug McKay, co-owner of Paradise Amusements of Post Falls, Idaho, was spraying lubricant on the tracks of the Super Loop 2 on Saturday while the ride was in operation when he slipped and fell. Less than a week after a man fell to his death from a circular roller coaster-like ride at a Whidbey Island fair, a similar ride will be featured today as the Evergreen State Fair opens in Monroe.Įlizabeth Grant, spokeswoman for the Monroe fair, said she's sure the accident will "be in the back of people's minds, but they'll go on (the ride) anyway."
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