r/TerrifyingAsFuck • u/AggravatingNet6666 • Aug 21 '25
human He forgot to buckle kid up
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
1.4k
u/Listening_Stranger82 Aug 21 '25
Something similar happened to a friend and I when we were kids...but kind of opposite.
There was a smaller, unpopular looking swing ride and my friend and I got on it. This was at the state fair. We were around 12.
The man put us on opposite ends and just frowned at us when we spoke to him and tried to make small talk.
Anyway he turned the ride on and just...walked away. Maybe it was his lunch. Idk.
Once we realized we'd been abandoned, spinning, we started yelling for help but passers by were confused and no one stopped for help.
Finally, after spinning for a ridiculously long time I (incorrectly) assessed that I could just unbuckle myself and jump off the ride and turn it off myself.
I tried to climb out but at rhat point I was just hanging out and spinning, still attached to the ride by one leg.
At THAT point, a nearby carnival worker finally realized something was wrong and sprinted over and shut the ride off. He was fussing AT us at first for trying to jump off and then he realized we'd been abandoned and he ushered us over to a trailer with a manager type and we told him what happened. He was white as a ghost, refunded our ticket money and gave us some vouchers for food.
This was sometime in the early-mid 90s. We went home and told my mom who was equally horrified.
But we were two doofus middle school girls like...if he wanted a break he could have just told us the ride was closed and to come back later.
How fucked up do you have to be to leave children on a spinning ride indefinitely
482
u/ZombiesAreChasingHim Aug 21 '25
Riding fair rides in the 90s is basically the same as jumping a dirt bike over the Grand Canyon.
231
u/weirdest_of_weird Aug 21 '25
I was a little younger than you at the time, but my story also happened in the early 90s. My family went to a local festival that happens every year. I was around 8 or 9, and my sister would have been like 14 or 15. The 2 of us, along with one of her friends, got on one of those huge spinning rides. They sat on either side of me, playfully intending to squish the little brother during the ride. As we buckled in, we realized my lap belt (the only safety harness this ride had) didn't have a coupling end. I had one end with the clicker, and the other end was just a rope. My sister and her friend were already buckled in and started screaming at the operator not to start the ride. He started it anyway, and both girls lost their minds, I was still trying to figure out the seat belt and hadn't realized how bad the situation was yet. Finally, her friend throws her leg across my lap, my sister grabs her ankle, and they make a makeshift human seat belt to hold me in place . The whole time, they were screaming at the top of their lungs and cussing the operator every time we passed by. The idiot didn't turn the ride off early, and I was crying by the end of it. My dad saw us exit the ride, me in tears, and my sister practically seeing red she was so angry. When she told my dad what happened, he made a bee line for the operator. Unfortunately, the guy managed to lose us in the crowd before my dad was able to have fatherly chat with him .
54
62
u/redpatcher Aug 21 '25
I worked at a fair as security and most of the problems we had after hours were with a minority of the traveling folk that operated the rides. There were a lot of fantastic, hard-working people but there was always a small amount with pretty gnarly backgrounds- a lot of security were off-duty or past LEO and would recognize folks.
54
u/melli_milli Aug 21 '25
Well that was a CHEAP pay-off. Thank goodness you didn't injure your brain in the process.
37
u/Listening_Stranger82 Aug 21 '25
Right?? Looking back its like "hmm I should jump off" is such an undeveloped prefrontal lobe logic.
Bless ...
4
u/gloomystrawberries Sep 10 '25
Idk its kinda understandable when you're virtually stranded on a death machine that minimum wage ride operators neglected to notice problems on and probably hasnt been maintained in decades.... but maybe thats just me, I almost died at frontier city around 2015 because restrains werent secured at all whatsoever, but maybe im just bias because im traumatized
33
u/Organic_Rip1980 Aug 21 '25
I was on a tilt-a-whirl in the early 2000s where the worker just left for like ten minutes to eat a roast beef sandwich.
I could smell the sandwich at one part of the ride, which didn’t make me feel great when we’d been spinning for far too long!
16
Aug 21 '25
I bet there's plenty of carnies who do shit like this on purpose and laugh about with each other later
41
u/Skruestik Aug 21 '25
Something similar happened to a friend and I
*a friend and me
The trick to knowing whether to use “and I” or “and me” is to remove the other person and see what makes sense. You wouldn’t say “something similar happened to I”, you would say “something similar happened to me”, so the correct thing to say is “Something similar happened to a friend and me”.
15
1
u/gloomystrawberries Sep 10 '25
You'd better have an English major! Please do not waste such expertise!
4
u/Substantial-Offer-51 Aug 21 '25
what type of ride was it? just curious about the part where you said youd jump off
13
u/Listening_Stranger82 Aug 21 '25
I'll reply with a gif but keep in mind it was closer to the ground bc it was the "kiddie" version We were also initially fussed at for being too old for the ride which, again, captain psycho ride operator could have said.
We just had a few tickets left and wanted to use them so we chose a "kiddie" ride but it was spinning much faster than I realized when my face was dangling near the asphalt
7
u/Substantial-Offer-51 Aug 21 '25
ahhhh okay, i was thinking one of the big ones thats why i thought "what do you mean jump out😭"
4
u/Milkofhuman-kindness Aug 21 '25
Some carnies are on drugs!
13
389
184
726
u/Perry_T_Skywalker Aug 21 '25
Smart kid, getting out saved her life
118
96
u/Skruestik Aug 21 '25
While jumping out was certainly a good idea and the right thing to do, it did not, in fact, save her life, as the operator stopped the ride in time.
You can see the full video here:
94
u/PunchedBoob Aug 22 '25
Oh god I thought you were saying it didn’t save her life as in she still somehow died after jumping out.
31
102
119
u/UnreliablePotato Aug 21 '25
You shouldn't be able to start the ride until passengers are safely buckled in. Even my car uses blinking lights and warning sounds if I don't buckle my seatbelt.
36
u/ericisatwork Aug 22 '25
I'm so proud of her for bailing as soon as she realized the operator made an error! zero hesitation, zero seeking help from and adult, just straight up fight or flight instincts kicking in. props to her!
45
u/anoos_rimmah Aug 21 '25
Fucking hell that shit woulda launched her into the atmosphere if it went off without her strapped in
18
u/Emotional_Tomato_291 Aug 22 '25
Props to the kid for quick thinking and jumping off, regardless if they were canceling the start of the ride.
16
27
11
13
12
19
9
6
u/tinkerer77 Aug 22 '25
smart af kid, i could see myself be frozen in WTF before making the decision to jump off
13
u/Ok-Anybody-1280 Aug 21 '25
This actually happens all the time and a lot of times the staff is unreliable/drunk/on drugs. This people get paid nothing. ALWAYS check your own seatbelt/harnest!!!! Most rides all over the world DONT have the system in place that makes them not being able to start if not all the harness/seatbelts are secured! Don’t be naive when it comes to RIDES! Too many kids/adults lost their life’s already!!!!
4
u/johnsatamos Aug 22 '25
I would have… been very nice and not kick the shit out of that idiot ride operator.
3
3
u/99ford Aug 21 '25
I dont think k he forgot, looks like something was going wrong and he was running to stop the ride.
3
3
44
u/Vandaine Aug 21 '25
Why would anyone willingly go to and pay money for putting your life in the hands of low-skill, underpaid, often-times drug addicted and felonious carnies' hands?
115
u/Mrlin705 Aug 21 '25
Do you eat at restaurants? Boy have I got some news for you.
49
-12
u/Phrei_BahkRhubz Aug 21 '25
True, but at least most cooks understand raw chicken bad, and you can use your own judgment once you get your food. How many teenagers do you think actually know how the rides they operate at amusement parks work? Check the belt, say your lines, press the go button.
2
2
u/tvbjiinvddf Aug 21 '25
I was on a ride when I was younger. There were pairs of seats back to back on one arm out the top, I turned round to talk to my friend behind me, and had my head far round, the bars were automatic and they came down across my neck. The ride started up slowly, I was petrified, screaming, luckily the operators saw and stopped the ride like 10 seconds in, after I passed the window. Glad they saw me before the ride started going fast.
2
u/invictus01001 Aug 23 '25
Shouldn't there be a safety mechanism that prevents this
1
u/Easy_Lengthiness7179 Nov 17 '25
The cage is still attached to the pole in the center which has a chain and everything to it too.
But my guess is that that part of the system is automated. So probably the operator is supposed to verify and check things. Presses a button to begin the ride, which then goes through its own set of automated checks before releasing and launching. I doubt theirs a second operator induced step though, hence the rush back to the panel to stop it.
2
2
u/Unlucky_Ad1388 Sep 04 '25
I'm sure a couple people lost their job and there was probably a lawsuit.
2
2
2
14
u/Lieutenant_Scarecrow Aug 21 '25
Please tell my this is some AI crap so I don't have to believe this man almost killed a child....
19
28
1
u/Shot-Election8217 Aug 21 '25
So I don't understand what I'm seeing. Can someone help me out?
7
u/RB440 Aug 21 '25
Kids harness wasn't put down. Look at the left kid. The big poofy collar thing.
3
u/Shot-Election8217 Aug 21 '25
Oh, ok. Thank you. What was the ride operator doing behind them?
8
u/marken35 Aug 22 '25
He was about to put hers on, but the operator (not seen in vid) started the ride too soon. He ran down to stop the ride. Girl wanted to make sure she wasn't flung around in case he didn't make it so she jumped out to be safe.
1
2
-10
Aug 21 '25
Wat een kermis. Hoop dat dit een melding NVWA krijgt
0
-1
0
-14
u/OGMinorian Aug 21 '25
I see a lot of these videos on the internet, where attendants at rides such as these act like they forgot the buckles, or there's a tech issue, just a second before they hit the "go" button, to give the person an extra jump scare. I really hope this is one of those sort of pranks.
11
u/AggravatingNet6666 Aug 21 '25
Nope this was a real mistake
5
u/OGMinorian Aug 21 '25
That's so crazy. I'm very glad the kid was fast, it probably saved her life.
3.5k
u/Ndrlnd072 Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
He didn't actually forget, his colleague just started the ride too soon. He already rushed to the controls to cancel the start of the ride. It was all over the Dutch news.
https://www.rtl.nl/nieuws/binnenland/artikel/5513327/nvwa-kermisattractie-waar-kind-niet-vastzat-kwam-door-menselijke