An amusement park ride took a tragic turn — and left a teen fighting for his life.
Footage captured the horrifying moment when Mark Fajardo, 13, was flung violently from a fair ride into a steel barrier, which resulted in him losing a lung.
The freak accident occurred on November 1. Fajardo and other youngsters were celebrating Halloween at an amusement park in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan province, in the Philippines, Viral Press reported.
Fajardo went on a “wave swinger” attraction, a carousel-like contraption in which riders are swung around in a circle while suspended from ropes. Unfortunately, the boy’s joy ride reportedly went awry after one of the broken locks on his seat opened, causing him to fly out of his harness.
In the nail-biting footage, the wave swinger whips the visitors around like a whirling dervish as they shriek in delight. However, their cries of joy quickly turn into screams of terror as Fajardo is thrown out of his seat and into a set of steel grilles like a medieval catapult.
Fearing the worst, quick-thinking bystanders rushed the unconscious teen to the hospital. While Fajardo survived the accident, he had to have one of his lungs removed due to injuries he sustained from the impact.
“Doctors told me he had to be careful since he now only has one lung left,” lamented the boy’s mom Marivic, who fears operators will “make up stories” to cover their tracks.
“They’re blaming my son, saying he removed the lock,” she said. “Why would he do that when the ride was going so fast?”
Authorities have since launched a probe into the attraction, which has been shuttered temporarily during the investigation. “Our problem now is to see if anyone is monitoring or checking the rides before they are used,” said Major General Ria Tacderan, a public information officer with the Pangasinan police.
Investigators discovered that the ride had been operating legally with a permit, which could be revoked if the operators are found guilty of safety infractions.
In a more large-scale fairground fiasco in September, multiple people were injured after a carnival ride plummeted 50 feet at an amusement park in India.