Boy thrown from carnival ride at Illinois community festival

By The Associated Press

Image of ambulance with flashing red lights

(MGN)

ANTIOCH, Ill. (AP) — Carnival rides were shut down at an Illinois community festival after a 10-year-old boy was thrown from his seat and seriously injured, authorities said.

The boy was riding Moby Dick, which locks people in at the shoulders and then goes up and down as speed increases. The boy was thrown Sunday as the ride was moving at Antioch’s Taste of Summer, 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) northwest of Chicago, near the Wisconsin border.

“The carnival was packed, and so a lot of people experienced seeing it,” said Charles Smith, operations commander at the Antioch police department. “It’s a traumatic event for our community.”

The boy was in critical condition when taken to a hospital, WLS-TV reported, though his condition Monday wasn’t immediately known.

Mayor Scott Gartner shut down rides at Taste of Antioch after the boy was injured.

There have been other incidents on summer rides this year. On July 2, eight people were trapped upside down on a roller coaster at a festival in Crandon, Wisconsin. A large crack was discovered in the support column of Fury 325, a towering roller coaster at Carowinds, an amusement park in Charlotte, North Carolina on June 30.

Erin Maloney said she was waiting with her son to ride Moby Dick.

“I turned and I hear a woman screaming,” she said. “And my son said, ‘Mom, look.’ I turned around and this little boy was just on the pavement, not moving not responsive.”