A fun family outing to an amusement park turned into tragedy. A young girl, 6, plunged to her death at a Colorado amusement park in 2021. After years in court, a jury awarded her parents millions in the wrongful death suit. Keep reading to find out the details of the preventable and senseless death.
6-Year-Old Girl Falls From Ride At Colorado Amusement Park
Amusement parks are a popular destination for families and adventure-seekers. The patrons of the parks put their lives in the hands of the ride engineers and park employees. Most people happily make it off the rides, ready to get back on them for another go. But one young girl, 6, never got off the ride at an amusement park in Colorado.
Wongel Estifanos plunged to her death at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in 2021. She was at the park with her family, including her uncle and cousins. She was among the family members who got on the Haunted Mine Drop that takes riders 110 feet down a mine shaft and back up.
The girl’s uncle was horrified when he realized she had fallen off the ride to the bottom of the mine during the ride’s first descent. He tried in vain to get the ride to stop, but it was too late. The 6-year-old girl died from “suffering numerous fractures, brain injuries and internal and external lacerations,” the report said.
It was later discovered that the girl wasn’t wearing the two seatbelts required for the ride. According to the Denver Post, the ride has an alarm system that alerts the ride operator if the seatbelts aren’t on. But the worker, who has just started at the job, ignored the alarms and reset them so that the ride could start.
That mistake led to the young girl’s death. Her parents filed a wrongful death suit against Glenwood Caverns Holdings, the park’s parent company, and Soaring Eagle, which designed the ride.
Her Parents Awarded Millions In Lawsuit
The young girl’s parents returned to court this week to hear the jury’s verdict. The jury awarded them $205 million in the wrongful death lawsuit. The award was $82 million for non-economic damages and $123 million in punitive damage to the Estifanos family.
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park responded to the verdict by telling PEOPLE magazine that the amusement park is at risk of going out of business due to the lawsuit. The amusement park put the blame solely on the Soaring Eagle for making a ride that they knew was faulty, citing two previous incidents of riders falling out of their seats.
The Soaring Eagle company has closed down since the accident.
The lawyer for the young girl’s parents released this statement about the verdict: “Wongel’s parents are very grateful to the jury for speaking the truth and holding this corporation responsible.”
Does a death at an amusement park make you think twice before going on the rides? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Jennifer Havener grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. She earned her B.A in Writing & Literature from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She always knew watching reality TV shows and soap operas, particularly ‘Days of Our Lives’, would come in handy someday. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dogs, Lola and Ruger