A 10-year-old boy who was thrown from a carnival ride at the Taste of Antioch Sunday afternoon remains hospitalized.
The Antioch Fire Department received a call at about 2:40 p.m. Sunday, of a child who had been hurt in a carnival ride during the Taste of Antioch. The 10-year-old boy, Huntley, was airlifted from Antioch to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge in critical condition.
Village officials said Huntley was thrown from the ride while it was in motion after he was not properly fastened. That’s when a family tradition turned into the unthinkable.
“It’s horrific. “Unacceptable. It’s just unacceptable,” said Dawne Pohlman, the boy’s grandmother. “They go every year. They’ve grown up in Antioch.”
Huntley’s family said he was transferred to Comer Children’s Hospital, where he was undergoing surgery Monday morning. His family said he is conscious.
Pohlman said Huntley’s mom was watching from below, and when he went airborne, she tried to go to catch him before he crashed to the ground.
“My daughter called me immediately. Before she even ran to him, she called me. She couldn’t see him that way,” Pohlman said.
His little sister blew kisses to the helicopter that carried Huntley to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago to undergo multiple surgeries. The majority, his family says, are to his face.
“This is a life-changing event for the whole family,” said Nancy Tapuaiga, Huntley’s great-aunt.
Now, Huntley’s loved ones bracing for the boy’s long road to recovery even after he’s eventually released from the hospital.
“”They’re going to need counseling, the whole family. This is not an easy situation. It makes you think about life in a whole different way, especially for a 10-year-old,” Tapuaiga said.
Ronald Hipólito said his wife and son also had issues on board the same carnival ride last week.
“My wife said she had to stop the ride, because my youngest son felt insecure inside the roller coaster,” Hipolito said. “He felt like he was going to fly out.”
The incident happened on the last day of Antioch’s summer food and entertainment festival.
“The carnival was packed, and so a lot of people experienced seeing it,” said Charles Smith, Commander of Operations for the Antioch Police Department. “It’s a traumatic event for our community.”
As the injured boy was rushed to Lutheran General, Mayor Scott Gartner made the call to shut down all carnival rides for the remainder of the event.
“Not only for the, you know, respect to the family that went through this, but also for the safety of the rest of the residents to make sure there weren’t other rides that could potentially be an issue,” Gartner said. “The public safety for something like this is first and foremost.”
Antioch village officials, along with the Department of Labor, investigating what went wrong, with a full report expected in the coming months.
[ABC 7 – original article]
[Picture – ABC 7]
