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Firefighters say one man is dead and another man was hurt after their equipment failed while working on the Tulsa Fairgrounds Sky Ride. They say the workers were standing in a cart and wearing harnesses while replacing wheels on the Sky Ride when their cart got loose and crashed to the ground. The equipment failure caused both men to fall and become trapped in their harnesses. One suffered a traumatic head injury and went into cardiac arrest. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
Read more and see photos and video from KJRH/Tulsa.
The Tulsa State Fair, (not to be confused with the Oklahoma State Fair, in Oklahoma City) runs Oct 1-11 this year, so they must've been in preparations. From the video it looks to be a Von Roll Skyride or something similar, and at 90 feet would be rather tall for a fairgrounds ride. This is the place where Bells operated until they were expelled, but perhaps this ride was a permanent fixture and belonged to the fairgrounds so it remains. I've never been there, but the fair is a good one and is on our bucket list of state fairs to visit one day.
We have a very long (but not as tall) SkyGlider that passes overhead, right by where I work at our Ohio State Fair. I see the guys in the little maintenance cart every morning and I get nervous for them. So it seems in this accident the safety harnesses kept them from falling, but one of the workers somehow hit his head which, sadly, didn't bode well for him as they dangled in the air waiting to be rescued. This is just terrible.
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