State Fair Ride lets children stick upside down: ‘I was really scared’

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KATV) – A mother in Little Rock, Arkansas, says her children no longer want to go on carnival rides after getting stuck on a carnival ride.

It happened last weekend at the Arkansas State Fair and it was all caught on camera.

Fair officials say their rides undergo several safety checks because safety is their top priority.

Ally Metzger recorded cellphone video showing her 11-year-old and 8-year-old children stuck upside down on the X-Drive carnival ride at the Arkansas State Fair on Saturday.

“There are some people trying to get the ride running, and they get it almost halfway, and then it goes all the way back up with my kids still upside down, so I’m panicking. My partner is panicking,” Metzger recalls.

She says this went on for a while while her two children hung upside down for at least 15 minutes.

“So I looked up. My 11-year-old, it looks like she passed out,” Metzger explained. ‘I couldn’t see her. Her eyes were closed. When she got home, she told me that all she remembered was crying and then just feeling dizzy. Her legs ached. I think because the circulation was out. So they were upside down for a good ten minutes and someone told me to start recording.

Scooter Korek, vice president of customer service for North American Midway Entertainment, explained how the ride crew finally got the kids down.

“The trip computer had a malfunction. So what it does is it shuts down if it finds something it doesn’t like,” Korek said. “So the ride Saturday afternoon was about 10 to 12 minutes in the air and not in the landing position. We evacuated everyone according to the manufacturer’s specifications, which are in the manual and for which we continuously train.”

North American Midway Entertainment is responsible for all attractions, both large and small, taking the show to fairgoers across the US.

“All my family members can go on one of our rides every day,” Korek said. “That’s how good I feel about our programs, our safety programs and the people who work for us to operate and provide these rides.”

Korek says the fairground rides go through five levels of inspection.

“We have a safety director and of course the ride inspectors from the Arkansas State Fair. We have the regulators. They watch these rides. We do periodic third party inspections, the most important of which are the guys who organize these rides. They travel with us wherever we go,” Korek added.

Metzger says she is filing a complaint with the Arkansas State Fair.

“We had a very honest conversation about it and they said, ‘You know, I was really scared. I didn’t know what happened. I just want to take a break if that’s okay,” Metzger said. “We had plans this weekend, but that turned everything upside down.”

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