Accident in the Prater

Girl (11) thrown from “Extasy” carousel

The Vienna Prater at night

(Bild: Michael Pichler)

A frightening moment of an unpleasant kind on Halloween in Vienna's Prater: an eleven-year-old girl was thrown from the "Extasy" ride on Wednesday evening and injured. Contrary to initial fears, the child of a family on vacation escaped with an ankle injury and a bruised arm. The notorious overhead carousel, which advertises an acceleration of up to 3G, had only recently made headlines with new revelations about a mysterious death from 2010.

The accident occurred at around 10 p.m. on Halloween night in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the Vienna Prater. On the "Extasy", several gondolas rotate horizontally in a circle, but are also spun vertically around their own axis. The overhead carousel is located not far from the Giant Ferris Wheel Square and is considered one of the Prater's top attractions (see video below) and is often used by adrenaline junkies for challenges, such as non-puking challenges. Last year, a major mobile phone operator also advertised its own "Extasy" challenge, in which participants had to answer questions on their smartphones during the ride.

According to the Vienna Professional Rescue Service, which was deployed with two teams, the girl was thrown out of the gondola under as yet unexplained circumstances and landed on the inner wall of the ride's boundary. Although the eleven-year-old's injuries were less serious than initially feared, she was taken to a hospital shock room, said spokeswoman Corina Had. The result of the scare for the teenager: an ankle injury and a bruised arm.

Did the safety bar open?
Meanwhile, the police have begun investigating how the girl was thrown out of the gondola. The footage from the ride's video surveillance camera has been seized for analysis. "This will be viewed over the next few days and we hope to be able to draw more detailed conclusions from it," said police spokesman Daniel Fürst. The most explosive question is whether the safety bar could have come loose and the young vacationer was thrown out of the gondola as a result.

The "Extasy" operator denies this and also emphasizes the minimum height requirement of 1.30 meters to be allowed to board at all. "We have already viewed the video footage. The girl may have been carrying a backpack without permission, which prevented the bar from fully engaging," operator Katja Kolnhofer told ORF.at on Thursday. However, the hanger did not open. "That is technically impossible," Kolnhofer emphasized. In any case, the girl was tall enough - the video also shows that the cashier placed her on the height control line.

In any case, the "Extasy" went back into operation in the evening hours on Wednesday, and according to Kolnhofer, operations continued as normal on Thursday. However, for safety reasons, the minimum height has been adjusted: instead of 1.40 meters, passengers must now be at least 1.50 meters tall.

Man died under mysterious circumstances in 2010
However, this is not the first time that the "Extasy" carousel has been in the negative headlines: in 2010, a 34-year-old man died in mysterious circumstances when he hit the ground in front of the Prater attraction's ticket booth. At the time, it was thought to have been a tragic accident. The assumption, supported by information from an employee, was that the victim had jumped over the barrier and run into the ride from outside.

However, it was only a few months ago that this former employee came forward and claimed to the research platform Addendum that the man had fallen out of the gondola. The ex-employee, who pressed the start button on the overhead carousel until 2015, claimed that the cause was a defective safety bar.

In general, the man spoke of serious safety deficiencies that had allegedly existed for many years. The former Prater employee is convinced that the cover-up of these safety defects cost the 34-year-old his life. Because his conscience had tormented him for years, he had decided to go public, he explained eight years after the 34-year-old's death, explaining why he was now recanting his original statement to the police.