A French mother was killed at her son’s birthday party on Saturday when she was thrown from a roller coaster.
The woman, identified by 360aproko as 32-year-old Elodie Duval, was celebrating her son Allen turning two at Parc Saint-Paul in Oise, about 50 miles north of Paris, when tragedy struck.
The mother was riding the park’s Formula One ride with her husband Allen when she was thrown over the safety bar to her death in front of horrified family members.
Witnesses said her husband managed to catch her by her ankle, but in the speed of the turn he lost his grip.
“She went over the [safety] bar and her husband tried to catch her by the foot,” one witness, who was waiting in line to ride with her own children, told the Courier Picard.
It was the victim’s first ever visit to the amusement park; her sister Laurianne and mother were also at the party during the horrific accident.
Laurianne told the publication her sister had blown out her son’s birthday candles with him earlier that day.
“We explained to him that his mum had gone to heaven,” she said. “He doesn’t understand.”
Officials at the park, which attracts around 380k visitors per year, confirmed in a statement that a woman had been killed while the ride was “in operation.”
“The park area has been completely cut off for visitors,” it said. “All the teams join the family to express their deep sadness following this event.”
Saturday was the fourth serious incident on the same ride since 2005, and the second fatality.
According to French media, a 35-year-old woman died of cardiac arrest after being flung from the coaster in 2009. Operators were not held liable after an investigation deemed the rider’s “inappropriate behavior” to have been the cause.
However in 2007 the park’s director Gilles Campion — who still serves today — was given a suspended four-month sentence and ordered to pay thousands of euro in damages when 15 people were hurt in two separate incidents just one month apart.
In August of 2005, four people were injured when a car derailed an slammed into a metal pole, just one month after 11 more people were hurt in a similar incident.
