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10-year-old thrown off carnival ride, suffers cracked skull and broken ribs
The impact of hitting the ground with such force left Daniels suffering from broken ribs, a broken femur, a broken arm, a broken jaw, and a cracked skull
July 20, 2023 8:50am
Updated: July 20, 2023 8:50am
A 10-year-old boy was thrown off a carnival ride in Illinois last weekend, leaving him with several broken ribs and a cracked skull, officials said in a statement.
The boy, identified as Huntley Daniels, was riding the Moby Dick ride at the Taste of Summer Festival in Antioch on Sunday when he was violently thrown off of it.
The impact of hitting the ground with such force left Daniels suffering from broken ribs, a broken femur, a broken arm, a broken jaw, and a cracked skull, his family told CBS 2 Chicago.
“You never think it would happen to you,” the boy’s grandmother, Dawne Pohlman, told the station. “You think, ‘Oh, this is just fun – this is what we do.’ But then it happens.”
Daniels was transferred to the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, where he underwent surgery. He continued to be in critical condition on Monday.
“It’s unacceptable. It’s supposed to be a great place; a fun place for kids, and honestly, I don’t think I would ever want a child to be on a ride like that again,” the enraged grandmother told CBS.
According to the police, the ride had been inspected by the state and had received a permit to operate at the festival this year. Authorities at the Illinois Department of Labor, which ensures the safety of carnival rides, are investigating the incident to determine whether negligence led to the accident.
Antioch Mayor Scott Garner on Sunday ordered all of the rides at the event to be shut down for officials to review.
A witness who was on the same ride told CBS that his harness was coming loose while on it and felt like he was going to fall out.
"It was going up over my head, so I was trying every time I went because it was going up, and I was almost about to fall out, I would slam down to close it, so that way I would not fall out," the other boy said.
"Maybe on the third time around, he almost did like a dive, like his hands were down, and his legs were straight, off the ride, and landed right outside the entrance gate."
