Carousel chaos: Nine injured in GrandWest fun fair horror

When the GrandWest Fun Park opened on 23 June for the winter school holidays, it most probably featured on many parent’s “things to do with the kids” list.

The popular Cape Town pop-up playground, which offered jumping castles, obstacle courses and 16 rides, has now been forced to close after a swing carousel toppled over mid-ride over the weekend.

According to IOL, the rotating top of the carousel came loose while children were spinning at full-speed through the air on the swings.

Nine riders were injured when the horror incident occurred, the report claimed.

GrandWest Fun Park closed until further notice

According to GrandWest general manager Mervyn Naidoo, four of the injured rider were taken to hospital. They were released with no serious injuries.

The fun park, which is owned and operated by an independent company, will be closed until further notice.

“The required clearance documents and signed-off plans were approved by structural engineers. We await the results of their investigation of the said incident. The other rides all worked according to specifications, but GrandWest will not permit the event to continue operating until a complete reassessment has been fully undertaken by the Fun Park event owners,” Naidoo said in a statement.

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Fatal rollercoaster accident rocks Sweden

On 25 June – two days after the opening of the GrandWest Fun Park – one person was killed and another nine injured during a rollercoaster accident at an amusement park in Sweden.

The ride at the 140-year-old Gröna Lund park, in Stockholm, came partly off the rails, witnesses said. The Jetline rollercoaster reaches a height of 30m and a speed of 90km/h.

According to a BBC report, 14 people were on the ride when the front part of the rollercoaster separated from the vehicle before coming to a halt in the middle of the track, resulting in people crashing to the ground.

Melbourne’s jumping castle ‘king’ jailed

In May this year, Melbourne jumping castle business owner was sentenced to 11 years in prison after ordering a string of arson attacks against his rivals.

“Burn them to the ground,” Balcombe reportedly told the three men he hired to commit 11 arson attacks on competitors’ businesses in 2016 and 2017. 

The arson attacks which, according to LADBible, were started by lighting fuel or Molotov cocktails, only caused minor damage. There was one incident, however, that saw 110 jumping castles going up in flames.

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The 58-year-old James Balcombe, whose company Awesome Party Hire was ranked number one on Google, was arrested on 7 March 2017 after he ordered his Molotov-flinging henchman to torch his own business.

Canberra Times reported that the “completely fixated” Balcombe’s decision was fuelled by his attempt to erase any suspicion as his business was the only one that were not torched at the time. There was also apparently the added motivation of pocketing a very attractive insurance payout.

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