Carnival ride forced to stop after harness on toddler flies open

Witnesses "had to scream" to draw attention to what was happening.

A carnival ride in Sydney had to be shut down this week after a toddler had a lucky escape from death. Horrified onlookers watched as a child's harness flew open just seconds before the free-fall ride at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show was about to take off. People rushed to stop the ride from starting when they noticed four-year-old Tristan Curtis was unrestrained. Images taken by a bystander have since circulated online, showing the restraint fully open above Tristan's head. His mother, Sky Boustani Curtis, was among the crowd and was forced to watch in horror as everything unfolded.

"The operator girl stopped the ride but didn’t get out of her booth so another father ended up getting him to climb down to him,’ she told the Daily Telegraph.

"Myself and my husband were not tall enough to reach him... They simply did not pull his harness down, didn’t check him."

She said that the ride operators "did not say one word to them" during or after the incident happened. "I would like to know it was taken seriously, it just felt like the whole situation was like it was nothing to worry about from them." Sky also added that her son is autistic, so it was "difficult" for her to know how he was feeling afterwards. Another person who witnessed what happened said that the workers operating the ride had absolutely "no idea" Tristan wasn't strapped in and onlookers "had to scream" to draw attention to it. Following the incident, the ride has been shut down and an urgent enquiry has been launched to determine what went wrong. It comes just weeks after a teenager tragically fell to his death after slipping out of his seat on a similar theme park ride in Florida. Feature image via Reddit.