Thirteen-year-old friends Charlotte Hacker and Emilia Gordon were on Playland’s Castaway Cove’s Wipe Out ride when the Ocean City boardwalk attraction suddenly malfunctioned and left riders trapped in the air.
With permission from their parents, the teens spoke to News Outlet about the frightening ordeal, describing what it felt like to hang upside down while waiting anxiously to be lowered back to safety.
“We were stuck upside down for five to seven minutes, and it doesn’t seem like that much to the people that were down watching us, but we were up there, and it felt like an hour,” Hacker said Saturday, recalling how slowly the moments passed.
The trip to the boardwalk was meant to be a birthday outing for Gordon, who was turning 13 the next day. The girls said they are regulars on the rides at Playland’s Castaway Cove and chose the Wipe Out because it was a new attraction they wanted to try.
Designed to swing like a giant pendulum, the Wipe Out flips passengers upside down again and again while the seating area rotates. But during this ride, it came to an unexplained halt, leaving everyone suspended upside down.
“I seriously thought I was going to pass out,” Gordon said. “You try to put your head up, but you literally can’t. You can barely get it up at all.”
Sitting side by side, the friends tried to keep calm by making ordinary small talk, hoping conversation would distract them as the pressure built and blood rushed to their heads.
People spend the evening on the Ocean City Boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Image)
“I remember thinking that the lap bars were going to open and that we were just going to fall,” Gordon said.
Family members on the ground waiting for their kids to get off the ride were terrified as well, the girls said.
“My uncle was there too, because we were all with my cousins, so he was also freaking out,” Hacker said.
Eventually, the ride’s operators managed to get it moving again, but to the girls’ dismay, it kept on going. Once the ride finished, they said they weren’t let off for another few minutes.
It is unclear what caused the apparent malfunction, and if any injuries were reported.
Charlotte Hacker (left) and Emilia Gordon (right) pose for a photo. The pair got stuck on an amusement ride in New Jersey in July. (Courtesy of Erica Hacker)
Hacker said the ride did not close, adding that there were some people who stayed in line and rode it after they got off.
“When we came off, people were literally clapping,” Gordon said.
The amusement park offered ticket refunds to the girls, which they didn’t think was sufficient after what they went through.
“That ride is five tickets, so they just gave back our ticket but [Hacker] only got three back. I got five. But still, after all that, I feel like you expect more,” Gordon said.
News Outlet has reached out to the Ocean City Fire Department, Ocean City Police Department, the ride’s operator and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for comment.
