Carnival ride accident a first in recent Rhody Festival history: 3 injured on ride; investigation into cause still underway

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The 82nd Rhododendron Festival will go down in Rhody history as the first to make national headlines in at least 30 years, after three people fell and were injured at a Funtastic Carnival ride on opening day.

Rhododendron Festival vice president Brandi Hamon, who has been coming to the festival for 40 years, was at the carnival May 18 with her son, Nick, and Rhody Fest president Debbie LaFollette and LaFollette’s son, Levi, when the incident occurred at about 5:30 p.m. They were called on to help with crowd control after three people fell about 15 feet from the purple no. 2 gondola of what is called the Phoenix wheel.

“The Ferris [Phoenix] wheel was supposed to be the focal point of the carnival,” Hamon said on Friday.

The cause of the accident remains under investigation. A report with eyewitness statements from the City of Port Townsend was not available as of Tuesday morning. The Phoenix wheel is to be inspected by an independent ride inspector this week in Portland, Oregon.

ONE STILL IN HOSPITAL

The most seriously injured of the accident victims, Susan “Shawn” Swartwood, 59, of Chimacum, was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on May 18. On May 22, she was alert and in serious but stable condition in intensive care with non-life-threatening injuries, according to hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg. Crystal Groth, 47, and Mikhail Groth Swartwood, 7, were taken to Jefferson Healthcare on the night of the accident for observation and then released, officials said.

All three people fell about 15 feet, according to Port Townsend Police Department Sgt. Troy Surber, who was on the scene about three minutes after the accident occurred. “When I came on scene, she was lying face down,” Surber said of the oldest victim. “She was on the bottom deck. There was blood about her head … somewhat responsive.”

Two Port Townsend police officers stayed at the carnival, standing guard over the Phoenix wheel, all night until a state-licensed inspector arrived Friday morning.

Hamon, who issued a statement Friday morning asking people to pray for the victims, was also fielding calls from “Good Morning America,” CNN and other news media outlets from around the country.

“I’m happy and relieved they are going to be OK,” Hamon said. “This is not the kind of national news the festival and our town needs. We need positive attention. What’s really sad is that there are so many rumors going around.”

On Monday, Hamon said she has learned that the family of the injured woman needs travel vouchers and help with prepared meals. The Leader reached out to connect with the family, but as of Tuesday morning had not been able to reach them to find out how the community could assist.

THE INCIDENT

Funtastic manager Keith Ellefson and Richard Spromberg, the state-certified ride inspector who was hired by Funtastic, inspected the ride on Friday morning. Ellefson said he could not comment on the incident until the reports had been released. Spromberg was looking at a 4-inch-square piece of metal and questioning whether it had contributed to the accident. No mention of the metal piece has been in any other reports so far.

After Spromberg looked over the ride on Friday morning, and the state Department of Labor Industries (L&I) revoked Funtastic’s permit for the Phoenix ride Friday afternoon, all other rides were allowed to continue operation after they had been re-inspected by Spromberg. The rides also had been inspected before the carnival started.

L&I spokesman Matthew Erlich said L&I would require that the Phoenix ride be repaired and inspected before it can operate again. It was not clear if the ride had been damaged, and if it had been damaged, how.

By law, the Funtastic Carnival is required to send L&I a report of any incident involving injuries within 24 hours of the incident, Erlich said.

Ronald E. Burback, president of Funtastic Ride Inc., which operates Funtastic Carnival, did that and wrote in a report to L&I Friday afternoon that “eyewitness accounts at this time seem to suggest something other than equipment failure that attributed to the incident.” He did not elaborate in the letter.

“We know from operator statements that the ride was balanced and operated according to procedure with about 10 people on the ride,” Burback wrote.

“Local police administered Bac [blood alcohol content] to the ride operators and the ride supervisor with a 0.00 reading and with all of the entity’s involved in the investigation this could take some time to bring to a conclusion,” Burback wrote.

Burback said Monday that one witness indicated seeing one of the two women on the ride in question standing, which is prohibited. He said he wished more eyewitnesses would step forward to share what they saw. He said the ride operator had not seen the accident.

STILL IN PT

The Phoenix wheel remained in Port Townsend Tuesday, at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, until it could be moved Thursday to Funtastic’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

Another independent inspector from Florida is to watch as the ride is reassembled, Burback said. That second inspector, who deals primarily with theme parks, would then forward a report on to the Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, Burback said. The result also would be shared with the state L&I, and if it suggests there is nothing wrong with the ride, Burback said he would ask for the permit to be reinstated.

“Although it seems self-serving,” Burback said of the ride inspectors he pays to do the inspections, “they are at arm’s length.”

“The last time I did this, eight or nine years ago, it took about 30 days,” Burback said of how long it might take for the ride to be inspected and that report to be forwarded to federal and state officials.

Burback was not in a rush to get the ride back up and operating. He said it was one of 80 amusement rides he owns.

As Hamon said, he has been bringing the carnival to Port Townsend for more than 30 years, and this is the first accident he could recall involving a ride.

He said the carnival refunded about 200 of the wristbands that had been sold that day, but noted that the rides continued to run after the incident happened on Thursday.

Burback said that did not surprise him. He said that in an incident at the Puyallup Fair in 2011, where a Lolli swing toppled and injured a dozen people, other rides with children on them continued to operate, surprising even him.

Burback said the carnival in Port Townsend earned a little less this year than it had last year, but not by much.

‘SURREAL SCENE’

Jefferson County Commissioner Kate Dean learned of the accident last Friday after receiving a text from her daughter and immediately went to the carnival.

“I got down here very quickly … I stayed for a few hours with first responders. I just wanted to make sure the county had a presence,” said Dean.

Memorial Athletic Field is owned by the county, but is within Port Townsend city limits.

Dean said the scene after the accident was “a little surreal because the show went on.”

“The county is very concerned about the well-being of the injured passengers,” Dean said on Friday.

“Our thoughts are with the families right now. We are also very concerned about the safety of the rides going into the weekend ahead,” she said, adding that since the county owns the field, it is therefore concerned about safety and liability.

“The inspector assures us that Funtastic has a great reputation, but we are committed to doing our due diligence,” Dean said.

“My kids will be begging me to come down here tonight, so I am just as concerned as other families are that these have been looked over in light of last night’s accident,” Dean told The Leader last Friday.

“We’re listed as an additionally insured on Funtastic’s insurance, but of course there’s always the concern that we would be named in a lawsuit. It’s a very real concern. We’re working with the state risk pool right now, covering our bases,” Dean acknowledged.

Dean had indicated on her Facebook page that the carnival could be shut down, but later in the day on Friday, County Administrator Philip Morley said a state-licensed ride inspector had provided an inspection report indicating that the carnival was meeting all safety requirements.

“Certainly an accident like this is very unfortunate,” Morley said. “Nobody wants to see something like this happen to anyone, nor should it. That’s why we insisted on an inspection of all the rides before they could reopen.”

RHODY ON THE RIDE

Rhody Festival Queen Lauren Montgomery and Princess Taylor Tracer were on the Phoenix wheel when the three people fell out of the gondola and the ride stopped because of the accident.

And they weren’t the only Rhody Festival family stuck for more than an hour while help arrived.

Rhody Festival president Debbie LaFollette’s son, Levi, and festival vice president Brandi Hamon’s son, Nick, also were on the ride, Brandi Hamon said.

“They didn’t see what happened, they were on the opposite side,” said Hamon.

“It was in slow motion. It seemed like a movie. Is this really happening?” said Hamon. “They were up there for about an hour. It felt like forever.

“It was really hard. At first my heart was ‘Oh, my gosh’ and then crowd control was difficult,” Hamon said of being asked to keep people back as East Jefferson Fire Rescue paramedics arrived.

“In my mind, I knew I had to stay calm but I just wanted him [Nick] down and I wanted him down now,” she said of her son, who has autism.

Hamon said she and LaFollette had to leave the carnival to prepare a press release for what they guessed would be a flurry of media inquiries, but that the young people around them wanted to stay and continue on with the rides as did hundreds of others at the carnival.