Thrill seekers in Wisconsin got the worst ride of their lives on Sunday after the ‘Fireball’ roller coaster “became stuck” at the Forest Country Festival.
Some thrill seekers in Wisconsin got the scariest ride of their lives over the weekend when their roller coaster broke down, leaving them hanging upside down for more than three hours.
The terrifying incident took place at the Forest Country Festival in Crandon when the Fireball roller coaster suffered a suspected mechanical failure on Sunday,
“It became stuck in the upright position,” Captain Brennan Cook of the Crandon Fire Department told the outlet. “The ride was recently inspected by the state of Wisconsin here on site, and at this time we don’t have any other information.”
In a Facebook video obtained by CBS 58, passengers could be seen hanging upside down on the roller coaster as they waited to be manually rescued by the Antigo Fire Department. Thankfully, each passenger was safely rescued and checked out in the hospital,
According to a Facebook user who posted the clip, the Fireball roller coaster malfunctioned after a passenger “dropped their purse” in the mechanism of the ride.
“Someone I know was there. Someone on the ride dropped their purse and it landed in the mechanism on the bottom stopping the ride,” Traci Wells from Jackson, Wisconsin, commented about the potential cause. “The fire department was unable to get it removed and had to get everyone out manually. Purses should have never been allowed on in the first place.”
![8 people stuck upside down on ride for hours in Wisconsin](https://people.com/thmb/4LElrqSUKihLTL4TojsQcQyVr-0=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(763x319:765x321):format(webp)/roller-coaster-wisconsin-070423-1-01110e557bbb41a58f0d032a172c812f.jpg)
CBS 58 reported eight people — seven of them children — stuck on the ride at the time of rescue.
“You know a lot of [the kids] you could tell, their legs were shaking, they were sweating, and it was just a matter of letting them know hey this is no race to get down to the finish line, the hard part is over,” City of Antigo Fire Department Firefighter/EMT, Erica Kostichka, told CBS 58.
The EMT described the kids as “very brave” during the scary incident — which could have ended in a much worse outcome. “It’s always a great opportunity when you can work with other agencies and it flows good, and the outcome comes out the way it was,” Kostichka added.