“The Greene County Fair Board sends our best wishes to the two injured children who were released from Niswonger Children’s Hospital today”, the fair said in a release Thursday night. The 10-year-old has a broken arm, the 16-year-old has just been upgraded to stable condition, but the six-year-suffered a traumatic brain injury, and remains in critical condition.
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Officials blamed a “mechanical failure” for causing the girls to drop at least 25 feet.
The mother of two of the three girls injured when a Ferris wheel gondola flipped over at a Tennessee county fair said her daughters remain hospitalized two days after the accident.
Workers were dismantling the rides at the fair earlier Thursday, and the fair will run through Saturday without rides.
The Greeneville Sun reports (http://bit.ly/2blJd5R) that operator Family Attractions Amusement will not re-open any of its rides following Monday’s accident in which the girls were knocked out of their gondola and fell between 30 and 45 feet to the ground.
Staff photos by Darren Reese of the rides coming down at the 2016 Greene County Fair Thursday morning. In an accident report to the state Labor Department, which regulates amusement park rides in Tennessee, fair officials wrote that the girls’ vehicle on the ride “got caught on a bar”, which “caused auto to turn over”.
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Fentress County Fair Officials haven’t heard yet whether Family Amusements Attraction LLC will be able to operate rides at their fair next week, but the ride operator has already started setting up the attractions on the fairgrounds in Jamestown.
