ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida officials said there is no timeline for reopening the Orlando drop tower at ICON Park in Orlando after a 14-year-old boy fell to his death from the thrill ride earlier this year.
State Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Ocoee, and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried hosted a meeting Wednesday morning discussing the future of the attractions. Fried’s office is investigating the death of Tyre Sampson, 14, after he fell to his death from the Orlando FreeFall attraction on March 24.
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While the first stage of the investigation has been completed, Fried said her office is “going one step further” and will not be putting a timeline on the investigation.
“We’re not because we want to make sure we get to the bottom and get to the answers,” she said. “And if it takes longer because we’re doing a deep dive, then this will take longer, but we are not going to rush this. We want to make sure that we are doing everything possible to get to the bottom of what happened, who made the authorizations and work within our parameters.”
An independent forensic engineering firm was hired early in the investigation and found the Orlando FreeFall operator, Slingshot Group, manually adjusted the sensors in the seat the teen was in, making the ride unsafe.
When Fried announced the firm’s findings, Fried said the operator of the Orlando FreeFall made “manual adjustments to the ride resulting in it being unsafe” and allowed the harness’ restraint opening to be “almost double” of the normal opening range.
Commissioner Fried: Tourism is our number one driver of our state but we have to do it safely. @news6wkmg
— Ezzy Castro (@EzzyCastro) June 22, 2022
Fried said lawsuits in the investigation will determine if any of the precautions could have prevented Sampson’s death.
A lawsuit filed by attorneys for the teen’s family alleges the ride’s operators should have known that riders could be “subject to unreasonably dangerous and foreseeable risks, and that serious injury and death of the occupants in the ride could result.”
The lawsuit points out that the ride did not have seatbelts, which would have cost operators of Orlando FreeFall $22 per seat for a combined $660 for all seats.
Fried said the department’s job is to inspect a ride and make sure it was put together by a manual created by the operator and by the manufacturer.
“We don’t have the authorization to question the engineer and the company itself on whether or not they’ve gone through those safe protocols,” she said. “... This is the big problem with this operator is that without any causation to show that there was absolute negligence with how they operated the ride, we can’t just do a blanket unless we find that there was actual problems with the operator.”
This meeting happened days after the teen’s father demanded that the Orlando FreeFall attraction be torn down. Yarnell Sampson was also joined by state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, who plans to introduce the “Tyre Sampson bill” to the Florida Legislature. The Slingshot Group released a statement in response.
Fried reiterated Wednesday that the investigation would take as long as it will for a thorough process and the Orlando FreeFall and Orlando Slingshot attractions are “shut down indefinitely. Period.”