Woman alleges huge safety incident on AlpenFury at Canada’s Wonderland | Daily Hive

Canada's Wonderland/@lifewithlocklyn

A TikTok video has gone viral after a mother shared a harrowing experience involving her 10-year-old daughter on Canada’s Wonderland’s new roller coaster, AlpenFury.

The ride, which is touted as the tallest, fastest, and longest launch coaster in the country, opened to the public earlier this month, though one park guest alleges that their ride on the new attraction almost ended in disaster.

The nearly 10-minute-long TikTok, posted by @lifewithlocklyn, has garnered almost four million views and more than 12,000 comments in the span of just a day, many from other concerned parents and fellow parkgoers.

Before boarding AlpenFury, the mother said she had her daughter test the sample seat available to riders. Feeling reassured by the test seat’s fit, the mother and daughter proceeded to board the ride. The daughter, Locklyn, was seated closest to the ride’s exit, while the mother was closest to the loading gate.

As the duo got settled in their seat, things took a concerning turn. “Her employee was playing a game of duck, duck, goose with these restraints,” the mother explained. Shortly after being seated, Locklyn turned to her mother and voiced her concern.

@lifewithlocklyn The scariest moment of my life by far. @🎢Canadas Wonderland is going to have bigger problems than wait times if safety isn’t the priority. #alpenfury #canadaswonderland #rollercoaster #worstexperience #storytime #lifewithlocklyn ♬ Dark, tense, movie, orchestra, 10 minutes(998819) – 8.864

“Mom, my seat’s not tight enough,” she said, indicating a noticeable gap between her thigh and the lap bar. The mother said they waited for a second employee to check the bar, but no one ever came.

“I started hearing the communication between the employees as if they were going to start the ride, and I knew my daughter was not secure,” she said. Unable to fully assist due to her own restraint, she began shouting for staff to help. Instead, she said the employee told her to push her daughter’s lap bar down herself, then gave the all-clear to dispatch the ride.

“I think my soul left my body,” she said. “I’m in full panic, I start hammering on her seat trying to get it to click down.” As the ride launched forward, the mother said she desperately reached across to physically hold her daughter in place.

“I could not tell you a single feature about this ride, couldn’t tell you anything fun about it, but I could tell you every excruciating second of what was happening between me and my daughter on this ride as I desperately tried to keep her in her seat,” she recalled.

“I remember at one point, her turning her head into the seat away from me, and I could see her mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying, and she told me after the ride that she was praying, because she was convinced that she was going to die.”

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After the ride, the mother said her hands were cramped and blue from holding down her daughter. The same staff member approached them and asked, “she’s good?”

“I went from anxious to pissed real fast,” she explained. “I said, ‘she’s alive,’ and he goes, ‘she’s good,’ I said, ‘she was hanging out of her seat, telling you no, telling you that she wasn’t secure, and you gave the all clear, what is wrong with you?'”

She immediately went to the gift shop to request ride photos for proof and then to guest services to file a complaint. The park staff, she said, appeared concerned, and the ride manager acknowledged the issue.

“I don’t want anything, and I cannot make that any more clear,” she said. “My child’s alive, and nothing that you’re going to give me is going to take back what we just experienced. I want to know how you are going to make sure that this doesn’t happen to somebody else tomorrow or the next day. This isn’t an unsafe ride, this is staff negligence. Fix that.”

After the incident, she was given two funnel cake vouchers. In a following communications with the manager, she was told that the issue had been discussed in a staff meeting and that the employee involved had been spoken to.

“Imagine my kid was on the ride with a friend, and not a parent who had the instinct and the strength to do what I did,” she said. “Strap your own kids, before you sit down, would be my recommendation.”

In a statement to blogTO, Canada’s Wonderland said that the park has “conducted an internal review and determined the correct safety checks were completed and the ride functioned as designed. All guests completed the ride safely. The safety of our guests is a top priority, and we have reinforced all safety policies with our operations team.”

The park also further explained AlpenFury’s restraint system, writing, “The lap bar on AlpenFury secures across the thighs and pelvis, along with additional restraints on the legs with padding secure against the shins. There are several levels of safety checks in place to ensure the restraint is locked in its correct position, including a physical push/pull by an associate and digital indicators on the train and in the control booth. The ride will not allow the train to dispatch until all restraints are in a safe, locked position.”

blogTO has reached out to the mother for more information regarding the incident.