On Thursday, March 24 at 11:10 p.m., 14-year-old Missouri teen, Tyre Sampson was pronounced dead in the hospital after falling off a free-fall ride at an Orlando amusement park ICON park(which was said to be taller than the statue of liberty). The Orlando Free Fall, which opened in December, takes up to 30 guests high into the air before dropping 400 feet at 70 mph stated by Fox News.

A video was taken on that fatal night and then posted on social media from then on. The video was trending and showed him falling out of the seat and falling down on the ground. After the incident happened, locals and tourists called 9-1-1 and he was taken to the hospital according to Orange County’s Sheriff’s Department. With the video going around Missouri Sheriff John Mina identified him and thus the call to the parents was then called. Yarnell Sampson said he was stunned to watch footage on social media of his son, plummeting from the free-fall ride at ICON Park as it was about halfway down its 430-foot descent on Thursday.  

“It felt like somebody hit me so hard in my stomach. I just lost, I lost, lost wind,” Sampson stated “And the pain behind it could never be taken away — and sorry’s not gonna take it back and no money, no nothing in the world to replace the young man. And it’s just sad, a young man’s bright future was taken away from him over a ride, an amusement park,” Sampson added. “I wish I was there to tell him I love him, that I’m sorry. For him to lose his life. So young, and I wish it was me,” Sampson told WESH. With the death of their son, Sampson and his family demand for the ride to be destroyed and get justice for their late son.

Icon Park, family, friends, and bystanders all came together for Sampson when they did a memorial for him at the place of his death. Even through tough times, a community comes together to show respect for one another.