An Arizona thrill-seeker’s harrowing ordeal on a roller coaster has been revealed, after he miraculously escaped a potentially deadly situation when his safety bar unexpectedly became unlatched on a moving ride. Cell phone footage captured the heart-stopping moment the man, who wishes to remain anonymous, clambered out of the Desert Storm roller coaster at Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix.
The incident occurred on Sunday, as the man was celebrating his niece’s birthday at the amusement park. He described the terrifying experience to NBC affiliate KPNX, recounting how the lap bar became unhinged just seconds after the double-looping roller coaster began its ascent. “We start the climb, and you hear the familiar click of the chain of the roller coaster,” the man explained. “We get just about to the top, and I hear a distinct click different from the click of the chain taking us up, so I checked my lap bar one last time – and it released.”
Reacting with lightning-quick reflexes, the man made the split-second decision to climb out of the ride and onto the catwalk, a move he firmly believes may have saved his life. “I had mere seconds to act on whether I stayed on or got off,” he reflected in an interview with KPNX. “That was the fastest decision I’ve ever made in my life.”
The ride’s operator, however, didn’t notice the man’s dramatic escape until he was safely back on the ground, prompting concerns about the level of attention being paid to rider safety. “She should have been watching that car and, when she saw me climbing out, should have been able to hit an emergency release – should have been able to do something,” the man pointed out in a critical assessment of the operator’s actions.
Furthermore, the man expressed disappointment with the operator’s pre-ride safety checks, recalling how she failed to physically verify that the lap bar was securely latched before the ride began. “I pushed up on mine. She looked. She walked away,” he recounted, highlighting a perceived lapse in safety protocol.
Following the incident, the man formally filed an incident report with the park authorities, although he was not provided with a copy. This perceived oversight has only added to his frustration and sense of resolve that stricter regulations are urgently needed. “I think the scariest part was the negligence on their part, and just the absolute carelessness that they had throughout the entire thing,” the man sharply criticized.
The incident has also shone a spotlight on Arizona’s lack of state regulations governing amusement parks, which instead rely on private insurance companies to conduct annual inspections. A spokesperson for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed this fact to NBC News. The man is now calling for a tightening of these rules. “100 percent needs to change. I think all amusement parks that basically have people’s lives in their hands need to be better regulated,” he emphatically told KPNX.
As of press time, Castles N’ Coasters had not responded to an NBC News request for comment regarding the incident.
