14-year-old boy dies after falling from ride at ICON Park
A 14-year-old boy fell to his death late at night from a free-fall amusement park ride along a busy street in the heart of the tourist district.
Sheriff’s officials and emergency crews responded to a call late Thursday at the Orlando Free Fall ride, which opened late last year at ICON Park on International Drive.
The boy was taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital, where he died from his injuries. He was identified as Tyre Sampson, who was on spring break visiting Orlando with his family from Missouri.
Sampson and friends got on the ride just after 11 p.m. when minutes later, pleas for help could be heard.
“The ride was going and during the middle of the ride the guy just came off," a 911 caller said.
A video briefly shared on social media caught the terrifying moment when Sampson appears to be falling out of his seat.
WESH 2 EXCLUSIVE: Man who filmed teen’s deadly fall from Free Fall describes horrific ICON Park accident
Ride passengers can be heard discussing issues with seat restraints that night, seconds before launching upward.
A spokesperson for the ride says all seats are supposed to lock before anything starts.
"They have to lock or else the ride will not operate. So this is what we're looking into,” John Stine with the SlingShot Group said.
Both the Orlando FreeFall and Orlando SlingShot, an adjacent ride run, will be closed indefinitely.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said his office will determine whether this was an accident or if criminal charges need to be filed.
Sampson's father says his son should still be alive.
"And sorry is not gonna take it back. And no monies, no nothing in the world could replace that young man," Yarnell Sampson said. "A young man's bright future was taken away from him over a ride."
"He was very well-mannered, light-spoken. 'Yes sir, yes ma'am,' everything. Honor roll student,” Sampson’s football coach, Arnaud Jones, said.
RELATED: Father, coach of teen who fell to death on Orlando's ICON Park ride speak out
Jones said the boy was looking forward to freshman year in high school this upcoming fall and says he had dreams of pursuing the sport he loved so much.
"I'm still trying to bottle it all in right now. He had 25 other brothers on the team. And it's me having to tell them the situation, it's just – it's just trying to figure how to deal with 25 emotions,” Jones said.
RELATED: Deadly ICON Park accident: Investigation into Free Fall reveals ride lacks seatbelts, has unique safety measures
ICON Park's Free Fall is the world's tallest free-standing drop tower, and the ride reaches about 75 miles per hour. The ride opened late last year and stands at 430-feet tall. It holds 30 passengers that are rotated around the tower and tilted towards the ground before entering free fall.
"We operate the ride with all the safety precautions in mind. Everything is in place. And this is why we're doing this investigation. We are working with those people investigating at this point," Stine said.
RELATED: ICON Park Free Fall: history of the tallest free-standing drop tower
Officials with ICON Park, the theme park that houses the Free Fall, along with other attractions such as The Wheel and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, released a statement Friday night about the tragic death of Tyre Sampson.
"Tonight, the ICON Park family is grieving because of the tragedy involving Tyre Sampson. Our heartfelt thoughts are with his family and friends. ICON Park is committed to being a place where families can spend quality time together in a safe and fun space. We are in close coordination and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and regulators," the statement read.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina held a news conference about the incident, which you can watch in full below:
'My heart sank': Witness video and account of deadly fall
A man by the name of Ivan, who decided not to go on the ride, had his cell phone out to record video of his friends’ reactions.
He ended up capturing the ride in its entirety including before it took off, during the drop and what happened immediately afterward.
Ivan said he did not even realize that 14-year-old Tyre Sampson fell during the exact moment that it happened since his eyes were fixed on his friends.
“When I heard that he was 14 years old, my heart sank,” Ivan said. “Literally, I’m heartbroken about it.”
Ivan said his friends were just two seats away from Tyre.
“This could have been one of my friends that it happened to,” he said. “It’s not what you would expect from a ride in the heart of Orlando. We’re known for our amusement parks, for our thrill rides.”
Ivan said there were red flags before the ride even took off. In his video, you can see one of his friends question the ride restraints.
“Why doesn’t this have the little clicky click? The seatbelt,” his friend asked a ride employee.
Ivan said she was asking about an additional seatbelt.
“In most rides, you have your harness that pulls down on you. But you also have the additional secondary seatbelt,” he said. “This does not have that. And it’s really concerning especially being a new ride not to have that.”
About 30 seconds after Tyre falls, ride employees, ask each other about the boy’s harness.
“Did you check him?” one employee asks her coworkers.
The other employees respond to her that they did check his harness and that the light was on. Ivan said each seat has a light that indicates if the harness is in place.
Victim's father, coach speak out
We're also hearing from people who knew Tyre Sampson.
Tyre's dad Yarnell Sampson spoke out publicly Friday afternoon.
"It felt like somebody hit me so hard in my stomach. I just lost, I lost, lost wind. And the pain behind it could never be taken away, and sorry's not gonna take it back and no monies, no nothing in the world to replace the young man. And it's just sad, a young man's bright future was taken away from him over a ride, an amusement park," Yarnell Sampson said.
Tyre's football coach, Arnaud Jones, in Missouri is also sharing his memories.
Tyre was in 8th grade and a part of a nationally ranked youth program.
"The biggest thing is, you don't question things that are supposed to happen, they teach you that. When you gotta good kid, straight A student, who never did anything wrong, never got in trouble, you know, you kinda question it, like, why him?" Jones said.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings issued the following statement, "I offer my deepest condolences for the family of the 14-year-old boy who died following the tragic incident at Icon Park. I look to receiving more information about what happened in the incident and what will be done to prevent it from ever happening again. The Florida Department of Agriculture and the Orange County Sheriff's Office investigations will bring clarity to the circumstances and next steps."
911 calls released
911 calls released Friday afternoon reveal the sheer terror in the voices of those in the area when the fall happened Thursday night.
Those calls flooded dispatchers in the moments following the accident in the heart of Orlando's busy tourist district.
“The thing went down to drop, and when it got closer to the bottom, when it hit the breaks, the guy fell right out of the seat. Bam! It was the biggest smack I’ve ever heard in my life,” one caller said.
“He’s face down. He has blood on his feet,” another caller said. “They’re saying he’s breathing, but he’s not responsive. It looks like his arms are broken.”
“When he fell, was he up off the ground?” the operator asked.
“Yeah, he was up, he was on the ride already,” the caller said.
“The ride was going, and during the middle of the ride, the guy just came off,” a third caller said.
Some of the people calling mentioned the victim was heavy. When the operator mentioned medics would perform CPR on him, a caller replied: “He’s about 300 pounds. He’s hard to lift."
Investigation into Free Fall ride safety measures
While a state ride safety inspector tries to figure out how a 14-year-old boy fell from seat number 31, there are key differences between the Free Fall at ICON Park and similar "drop" rides.
On Free Fall, which is owned by Slingshot Group, there's no belt connecting the horn on the seat to the shoulder restraint.
One expert WESH 2 spoke with said ride design may not have played a role in this accident.
“They tend to be operator error … as the root cause,” Nathan MacDonald, a theme park and ride safety expert with Alpine Engineering & Design said.
He says most modern rides have one or two safety backups to prevent mishaps, but the one consistent theme in most accidents he's investigated: employees just weren't trained to ensure safety measures were in place.
“That's one of the reasons why training and you know following the correct procedures in terms of operating the ride safely is absolutely critical,” MacDonald said.
“There's only so much that a designer can do. At the end of the day you really have to rely on the operator, operating the ride, properly,” MacDonald said.
More tower drop ride deaths
Another incident at ICON Park in September 2020 left one worker dead after falling from the StarFlyer attraction. That worker fell about 50-60 feet. StarFlyer is a 450-foot tall tower that spins riders around at about 45 miles per hour.
Just last September, two workers at Glenwood Caverns' Mine Drop in Denver, were alleged to have forgotten to buckle 6-year-old Wongel Estifanos who fell from the seat to her death.
Short history of tallest free-standing drop tower
ICON Park's Orlando Free Fall ride is one of the newest additions to the area on International Drive, where it now stands as the tallest drop tower in the world.
Free Fall was announced in May 2019 alongside the Orlando Slingshot, both to be operated by the Slingshot Group. Plans for the two rides were delayed due to the pandemic and other factors, with their opening dates pushed back several times until their final opening in December 2021.
Crews finished construction on Free Fall in October 2021 with a large teardrop on top of the tower. The completed Free Fall tower stands at 430 feet, the tallest of its kind.
ICON Park's website says the ride can operate with thirty riders at a time. Once the ride reaches the top, it tilts forward 30 degrees and faces the ground before free falling nearly 400 feet at speeds reaching over 75 mph.
The ride opened on Dec. 28, 2021.