Florida ride operator went to retrieve a guest’s hat, cops say. Then the floor dropped.
A fun evening out at the Clay County Agricultural Fair took a horrifying turn Friday night in Green Cove Springs, Florida.
Sometime between 8 and 9 p.m., a carnival worker fell through the collapsible floor of The Hydra and was pinned in tightly between two large slats for about 15 minutes.
Bystander Aurelia Smith’s cellphone video shows the man, later identified as 28-year-old Davontai Lee, struggling as people scramble around him. Only the top half of the operator’s body can be seen, the bottom half swallowed up in metal.
“Has somebody called 911 yet?!” a woman screams off camera.
According to cops, Lee was trying to do a “good deed” — retrieve a customer’s hat that had somehow fallen from the Hydra — just as the ride’s floor gave way.
Chief Jeff Johnson with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office told media the incident occurred due to “bad timing.”
“There were no problems with the function of the ride,” Johnson said in a statement. ”The ride had nothing to do with this. The ride is functioning properly.”
The operator, who was briefly hospitalized, said he was thankful to be alive: “Thank God I’m still here on the earth right now,” wrote Lee in a Facebook post on Sunday. “I thought I was gone, but God had me covered and I appreciate everyone who sent out prayers for me.”
Just last month, a Missouri teen died after falling from his seat on the ICON Park Free Fall in Orlando. The investigation into that incident is ongoing.
This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 6:23 PM.
