More than a dozen injured when Connecticut carnival swing ride loses power

Chance Rides "Zumur" - courtesy of flatrides.com.

I pretty much avoid carnival rides but especially ones that have riders leave the ground.

Thanks for the picture I couldn't tell really well what the ride was. Parents sure have had it rough in Connecticut this past year.

The Zumur ride was released around the same time as the YoYo, I don't know if it was before or after. I seem to recall maybe it was after, as I think it was advertised as a more affordable ride for the smaller operator. Anyway, it was designed to be a pretty fast ride with 2 speeds, fast and faster. The operator could alternate between the two, causing the riders to rise and fall a little while it turned. It's been out of the catalog for a long time, so I imagine any models that are left out there have to be pretty old.
The last one I saw in person was last year at the Illinois State Fair. It had lost a lot of its oomph and was more like a kiddie swing ride than anything. It sounds like this one might've been tamed over time as well.
I wonder how accurate it is for them to say the ride "lost power"? It seems to me that would cause it to fly around unaided until it coasted to a stop. If this accident was caused by an abrupt stop I bet something else happened, like a jam or some kind of breakage that would all of a sudden prevent it from turning.
Anyway, it's a shame and I especially hate to hear it when a lot of kids are involved.

I'm sure Mr. (555) GET EVEN will have a field day with this one.

I almost went to the Norwalk Oyster fest last night! Thank God I didn't. I have been on this exact ride before because the carnival company that was running this event, Stewart Entertainment Co, has brought the Zumur Swing to the carnival in my town multiple times. It definitely was still running very fast even though it was an older ride.

RCMAC said:
I wonder how accurate it is for them to say the ride "lost power"? It seems to me that would cause it to fly around unaided until it coasted to a stop. If this accident was caused by an abrupt stop I bet something else happened, like a jam or some kind of breakage that would all of a sudden prevent it from turning.

I don't know about this ride, but I know the larger flying carousels are designed to almost immediately stop all ride movement (including rotation) when an e-stop is pressed. This makes all the swings crash into each other and can bang up the knees of any riders, but nothing as serious as this story. A power outage would have the same effect as an e-stop.

Gosh, it almost doesn't make sense but I don't know, maybe in the long run its safer to stop the ride in the case of a malfunction. Now, an e-stop makes better sense because it's an emergency stop, and stop means stop. Usually an e-stop turns out bad for the riders but not as bad as it might've been if it were allowed to continue.

A loss of power would not cause this type of reaction. Nor would a gearbox failure usually. If that were the case the spinning frame would just coast to a stop. The only thing that I can surmise is the center bearing seizing up.

For God's sake, the ride operator sits on the grass against the trailer of the ride, right in the center. It clearly was not designed with present day safety codes.

I was just mentioning to some friends the lack of carnivals I saw in Chicago, none to be exact. Let's hope the kids will be fine. I fear carnivals are a dying bread around Cities with amusement parks. But, I could be wrong.

Ron Witrzek said:

I fear carnivals are a dying bread

That's why you should always add yeast to them.

Ron Witrzek said:

I was just mentioning to some friends the lack of carnivals I saw in Chicago

If you can't even have guns there, why would they allow whirling mechanical monstrosities to fly our kids in circles at the (admittedly miniscule) risk of bodily injury or death?