Story Archive

What a Ride

A 14-year-old girl was on the “Sky Ride” at the Six Flags Great Escape amusement park in Queensbury, N.Y. (an “open two-person cable car,” the park says, where you can “let your legs dangle.”). Somehow, the unidentified girl from Delaware slipped out of her seat and her whole body was dangling, 25 feet in the air, while her little brother tried to hold her. A crowd gathered, and Matthew Howard Sr., 47, ran under the girl and got ready to catch her. “I couldn’t let that little girl die,” Howard said. “No one wants to put himself underneath a body like that, but I couldn’t stand by and watch.” The operator stopped the ride; sure enough the girl fell, Howard caught her, and she was taken to a hospital, where she was declared “not seriously injured.” Howard was treated for a back injury, while other bystanders played their own roles: recording it all on video. (RC/Albany Times Union, AP) ...Evidence for the inevitable lawsuit.