A teenage girl escaped serious injury Saturday evening after falling 25 feet from an amusement park ride in Upstate New York — and into the arms of a crowd that had gathered below to catch her.
The dramatic fall and rescue was captured on video by at least one bystander at Six Flags Great Escape in Lake George, N.Y., about 60 miles north of Albany, where the incident took place.
In the video, a girl wearing blue shorts and a gray shirt can be seen dangling from a stopped gondola and screaming as several onlookers shout in alarm. Another person is seated inside the two-person gondola, not in apparent danger of falling.
”I was sitting there waiting and I heard the people screaming," Loren Lent, who witnessed the incident, told The Washington Post. He said he had been standing nearby waiting to photograph his own family members, who were in a later gondola on the same ride.
Instead, he filmed a tense, life-threatening situation. A crowd began gathering beneath the dangling girl, their arms outstretched, as one person climbed into the tree to try to break off and move back branches, Lent said.
”That was a very good idea," he said. ”It was just good to see people band together to do what they could do."
After several moments, Lent can be heard in the video yelling: ”They'll catch you! They'll catch you, honey, go ahead!" It was then that the girl plummeted to the ground, hitting a tree branch before being caught by several people below. The video showed onlookers cheering after the girl was caught and then the girl being carried away, limp.
The girl who fell was a 14-year-old park guest visiting from Greenwood, Del., according to a statement from the Warren County Sheriff's Office. She was treated by park emergency medical staff first, then taken to a local hospital and finally flown by helicopter to Albany Medical Center. She remains in stable condition with no serious injuries, police said.
A 47-year-old man visiting the park from Schenectady, N.Y., was also taken to a local hospital for a back injury he suffered as he tried to catch the girl, police said.
