In a bizarre turn of events that is just begging me to make a bunch of tactless puns about death, Justin Honeycutt, a 30-year old Magic Midway employee who also happened to wrestle locally under the name “Ryze”, died Saturday by falling off of the Star Flyers ride at the Orlando amusement park.
Honeycutt was trying to repair the ride about 90 feet in the air when he fell about six feet. Most reports are vague about how a guy died by falling six feet, but the phrase “rescue crews found Honeycutt unconscious, suspended in the air by a safety harness” makes me feel uneasy. When I was a kid I saw somebody fall out of the big swing carousel at a Busch Gardens, and I haven’t gone near those things since. I guess the only way you can die falling six feet in a safety harness is if you hit something on the way down, had a Gwen Stacy situation where the fall and sudden stop killed you, or you had a f**king heart attack because you were about to fall off of a 90 foot carnival ride.
From the Orlando News 13 report:
“It is under investigation,” said Mark Smothers, spokesman for Orange County Fire Rescue, “we will turn it over to [FL Dept. of Agriculture], and the sheriff’s office will treat it as a death investigation.”
Investigators are not yet sure why the worker fell. Magical Midway reopened Sunday. Star Flyers will remain closed while it is inspected by the FL Bureau of Fair Rides Inspection.
And then there’s the little footnote, which is sure to cause instant facepalming for any wrestling fan reading this.
Star Flyers is billed as “America’s only carousel on steroids.”
