Two girls attending a festival were injured after they were thrown from a Ferris wheel, officials said.
On Saturday November 1, the girls were attending the Harvest Festival in New Roads, Louisiana and decided to ride the Ferris wheel, according to WBRZ.
Witnesses told officials they saw three girls get into one of the Ferris wheel baskets and later saw the basket tip, spilling the girls, both of whom are younger than 13-years-old, to the ground, according WBRZ.
“I heard like a body, just like something falling, I heard a loud boom,” Madison Fields, who was attending the festival, told the broadcaster. “It was two girls, and one of the girls fell on her face, and she was really damaged.”
She said she believes the basket got caught on a foreign object, which caused it to tip.
One of the girls required an airlift to hospital, witnesses said. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
“It caught on to the wires, and then it tilted over, and the two girls fell out,” she said.
Both girls were rushed to hospitals for treatment. One of the them was flown to a Baton Rouge hospital, according to officials.
Their condition is unknown.
In video posted to Facebook by one of the attendees, police and bystanders can be seen trying to help one of the girls, who appears to be on the ground and suffering in pain. Another group helps the other passenger out of the Ferris wheel basket.
Eddie Jones, who shot the video, told WBRZ that the incident left him fearful of the rides.
“Yeah, I’ll probably never get on another Ferris wheel,” he said.
Fields added the she had planned to go on the ride later that day.
“It was sad and upsetting, like, because, what if that could have been me?” she told WBRZ.
The Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal issued a statement that it “is actively investigating an incident in which two riders fell from a Ferris wheel ride at the New Roads Harvest Festival Saturday.”
Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff Rene Thibodeaux said in a statement that all of the festival’s rides were shut down to allow for the state fire marshal’s office to conduct an inspection. Once the inspection was complete, all of the rides except for the Ferris wheel were reopened.
The Harvest Festival, which began in late October, wrapped up as scheduled on November 2.
