The Boomerang rollercoaster at Wild Adventures stopped suddenly on July 3 (Picture: Fox News)
Amusement park visitors on a rollercoaster were terror-stricken when the ride stopped suddenly while going backward.
The Boomerang coaster at Wild Adventures theme park in Georgia moved forward on its track and then back, then came to an unexpected halt.
A young rider, Rishon Phillips, told WALB: ‘I was hearing noises and I thought it was gonna go down, but when my cousin told me it was stuck.
‘I had a panic attack.’
The Boomerang ride is inspected daily, Wild Adventures theme park officials said (Picture: Google Maps)
He said his heart was beating so fast that he was examined by theme park medical staff.
‘My heart was hurting. I was crying,’ he said. ‘They put me in a wheelchair to send me to the medic part of the theme park.’
His cousin Akemia Anderson was alongside him during the scary stoppage.
‘It was going good when we first got on, but when it was time to drop to go backwards, it got stuck,’ Anderson told the TV station.
‘We didn’t know anything until my cousin walked up and started yelling to us that the ride was stuck.’
Wild Adventures stated that its Boomerang coaster ‘encountered a brief ride stoppage triggered by a safety feature activation’.
‘Within approximately 10 minutes, our team safely returned all riders to the loading station,’ stated the theme park of the July 3 incident. ‘Following a comprehensive inspection, the ride was cleared and resumed operation that same night.’
A Wild Adventures spokesperson said the theme park’s inspection routine meets ASTM F24 standards.
‘This practice includes daily inspections of ride components before the park opens,’ the spokesperson told WALB. ‘Wild Adventures conducts additional supplementary inspections based on each ride’s manufacturer requirements and internal operational standards.’
The Boomerang’s stoppage happened one day after riders on the Fireball rollercoaster at the Forest County Festival in Wisconsin got stuck upside down for several hours. Riders were taken to hospitals to be examined and no serious injuries were reported.
And just days before that, a father visiting the Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his daughter, son, niece and son’s friend, saw and recorded a huge crack on a coaster pillar as riders raced by.
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