A roller coaster in Georgia halted in the middle of a ride, sending one passenger into a panic attack when it stopped moving: report
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- One person had a panic attack after a roller coaster ride in Georgia stopped midway, per WALB.
- Wild Adventures theme park said the stoppage was "triggered by a safety feature activation."
- "My heart was hurting. I was crying," passenger Rishon Phillips told Georgia TV station WALB.
One person had a panic attack after a roller coaster in Georgia stopped moving midway through the ride, according to a July 5 report from Georgia television station WALB.
WALB reported that Wild Adventures theme park's Boomerang roller coaster stopped moving during a ride on July 3. The sudden stoppage frightened the passengers, including Rishon Phillips, a boy who said he was on the ride when it stopped abruptly.
"I was hearing noises, and I thought it was gonna go down, but when my cousin told me it was stuck, I had a panic attack," passenger Rishon Phillips told WALB.
"My heart was hurting. I was crying. They put me in a wheelchair to send me to the medic part of the theme park," Phillips continued.
Wild Adventures said in a statement to WALB that the Boomerang roller coaster "encountered a brief ride stoppage triggered by a safety feature activation." Wild Adventures also said they were able to return "all riders to the loading station" within 10 minutes.
"Following a comprehensive inspection, the ride was cleared and resumed operation that same night," Wild Adventures said in their statement to WALB.
The incident in Georgia is but one of several involving roller coasters in the US. On July 2, eight passengers were trapped and suspended upside-down when a roller coaster malfunctioned in Wisconsin. And on June 30, a roller coaster in North Carolina was shut down temporarily after guests spotted a crack in its support beam.
Representatives for Wild Adventures did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.