Tyre Sampson, a 14-year-old boy, fell to his death from a 430-foot ride in Orlando, Florida on March 24.
Sampson was at Orlando’s ICON Park on a ride called Orlando Free Fall. The ride is the world’s tallest freestanding drop tower-type ride. It has thirty seats for ride-goers, rotates as it goes up, tilts towards the ground for a moment at the top, and drops down at around 75 miles per hour.
Orlando Free Fall has over-the-shoulder harnesses and two grips positioned on either side of a rider’s body. According to the New York Post, riders pull the harnesses down when they get on, and the restraints automatically lift when the ride is over.
CBS shared a video of a guest on the ride at the same time as Sampson.
A voice can be heard asking the ride attendant, “Why doesn’t this have a little click to it, like a seatbelt?” The worker replied, “Check your seatbelt on the left side… seatbelt…” as the ride took off traveling up the tower.
Sampson fell from the ride while it was in descent, about halfway through the drop back down the tower. Authorities arrived at the scene shortly after 11:00 p.m.
According to Fox 4, a witness, Montrey Williams, thought it was a part of the ride that fell.
“We got a little closer, and it was a person laying on the ground. Everyone was just panicking and screaming,” Williams said.
Sampson’s father, Yarnell Sampson, said, “When the ride took off, that’s when he (his son) was feeling uncomfortable. He was like, ‘This thing is moving,’ you know what I’m saying. And he was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And that’s when he started freaking out.”
Sampson was on the ride with his two best friends.
One friend sitting beside him said, “If I don’t make it down … Please tell my mama and daddy I love them.”
Sampson was 6 foot 5 inches tall at 14 years old and weighed 340 pounds. He was not able to go on other rides at the complex but was allowed on the Free Fall.
His father, Yarnell, said, “This one particular ride decided, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna take you, come on, get on,’ when nobody else allowed him to get on the rides.”
Sampson, an eighth-grader at City Garden Montessori School in St. Louis, Missouri, was on a trip with his recreational football team, the St. Louis Bad Boyz football club. The club had gone to Orlando over spring break for a week-long training camp.
Sampson’s football coach, AJ Jones, described him as a “humble giant.”
This fall, he was set to go to East St. Louis High School, where he would be a starting offensive lineman. The 14-year-old dreamed of going on to be in the NFL.
Sampson’s stepmother, Wendy Wooten, said, “That was his dream, and he was on his way. He had so many scouts looking at him. He was going to be a great football player.”
Bob Hilliard, a Texas attorney representing Sampson’s mother, Nekia Dodd, said, “This young man, he was athletic, and he was big. He had no way of knowing. This is going to be an issue of a lack of supervision and lack of training. A straight-up negligence case.”
According to an Orlando news outlet, SlingShot Group owns and operates the Orlando Free Fall, which officially opened in December 2021 at the ICON Park. SlingShot also owns and operates Orlando Slingshot and StarFlyer. All three rides are currently closed.
ICON Park is an entertainment complex with amusement park rides, restaurants, bars, shopping, entertaining museums, and an aquarium.
A statement from ICON Park said, “Tonight, the ICON Park family is grieving because of the tragedy involving Tyre Sampson. Our heartfelt thoughts are with his family and friends. ICON Park is committed to being a place where families can spend quality time together in a safe and fun space. We are in close coordination and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and regulators regarding our tenant, the SlingShot Group.”
The investigation is ongoing, and there are no criminal charges at this time.
