“Fortunately through the night she has done well and we are able to say she will be downgraded to a stable condition today”, Dr. Bracken Burns says. Members of the Greeneville Fire Department help people off the ferris wheel at the Greene County Fair in Greeneville, Tenn., Monday, Aug. 8, 2016.
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The accident left a 6-year-old girl with a traumatic brain injury, and has prompted renewed scrutiny of the lack of state or federal inspections to ensure that traveling carnival ride has been safely installed before it opens for business.
Meanwhile, reports indicate that a mechanical problem caused the vehicle to dump the three children, Capt. Tim Davis of the Greeneville Police Department said.
The Ferris wheel at the Greene County Fair was operated by Valdosta, Georgia-based Family Attractions Amusement. As a result, they don’t have numerous safety enhancements that roller coasters have.
A spokesperson for the Niswonger Children’s Hospital said the 6-year-old is still in critical condition. Instigators determined that ride operators had disabled a safety mechanism.
WCTV has reached out to Family Attractions Amusement Company for comment multiple times but none of the calls have been returned.
Ferris wheels are popular fair rides that take people to great heights on a relatively slow moving wheel.
At the North Carolina State Fair, five people were injured when an Italian-made ride called the Vortex unexpectedly restarted as they were trying to get off the ride, flinging them through the air and down to the steel deck below.
Tennessee recognizes other states’ inspections for up to three months before requiring a new permit, according to state Department of Labor and Workforce Development spokeswoman Jennifer Farrar.
The company claimed they didn’t own the ride at the North Carolina incident, but regulators found the company held the insurance for the ride, those that operated the ride were employed by the company and the company was listed as the owner for other fairs across the country.
The Greene County incident was the eighth injury incident reported to Tennessee authorities on amusement rides this summer: They included fractured wrists and knee caps for a woman ejected from a ride in Gatlinburg, and in Pigeon Forge, a broken arm on a roller coaster and injured backs from doing back flips at a trampoline park and being hit from behind on an alpine coaster.
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A third-party inspector will determine what caused the auto to tip over and it’s now unclear when or if the rides were last inspected.
