Monday, December 01, 2008

By MICHAEL R. SHEA , mshea@modbee.com

last updated: May 17, 2008 06:07:00 PM

ANGELS CAMP -- Shock and disappointment spread throughout the Mother Lode on Saturday as families of the 23 people injured in a carnival ride collapse at the Calaveras County Fair a night earlier asked the simple question: How could this have happened?

Mike and Tricia Schlueter of Murphys were sitting on the fairgrounds lawn, eating hot dogs, waiting for the monster truck rally, when they heard a loud crash.

"I thought it was related to the trucks," Mike Schlueter said by phone Saturday.

The Schlueters' 9-year-old son came running.

"Mom! Mom! The swings collapsed and Brandon is really hurt," Tricia Schlueter remembers her son screaming. "I flipped a gasket and started running. It was complete chaos. Dust was everywhere."

Brandon Schlueter and his friend Elijah Stalder, both 13, were on the Yo-Yo when it collapsed. The large, swing-style ride lifts the swing-seats into the air on long chains and spins in a circle.

"I got on the ride and sat in the back with my friend," Brandon said. "It was doing OK, but bouncing up and down a little, then it took us up in the air. We went around twice, then it dropped us to the ground and dragged us, then brought us off the ground again all tangled. There was all this noise. People were screaming and then I don't know. ... After it dragged us for another minute, it just stopped. There was a bunch of dust everywhere."

Road rash took the skin off Brandon's leg, and both arms are bruised and welted from the chains that wrapped around him in the tangle, his mother said. He has black-and-blue bruises on his forehead from where an empty swing seat struck him, she said. His friend Elijah is covered in welts and bruises, but isn't hurt quite as bad and said he owes that to his buddy.

"Brandon tried to pull swings away from me. He saved me," Elijah said.

Calaveras County sheriff's deputies quickly surrounded the collapsed ride and tried to keep people from running after their children, Tricia Schlueter said. Others emergency workers pulled the injured free from the wreck.

"A sheriff (deputy) had my arm and I broke away and I just saw children scattered all over the ground," Tricia Schlueter said. "Brandon was on an ATV, they got him out. The skin was torn off his leg and there was terrible bruising already on his arms."

Both boys were cleared of major injuries at Mark Twain St. Joseph's Hospital in San Andreas, she said.

The three most seriously injured were airlifted to hospitals, including one to Doctors Medical Center and one to Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, according to the Tuolumne/Calaveras unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. The third was taken to the University of California at Davis Medical Center.

Their conditions were not available Saturday afternoon.

The 21 other riders, including Brandon and Elijah, were taken to area hospitals, said Calaveras County sheriff's Sgt. Dave Seawell. First reports Friday night indicated 24 people were hurt, but the number of injured was lowered by one Saturday.

Investigators from the Sheriff's Department and the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal/OSHA, haven't determined the cause of the accident, Seawell said. There isn't time left in the fair to inspect the rest of the rides for safety, he said, so the carnival portion of the fair will be closed.

Midway of Fun, the Oroville-based company that owns and operated the rides, did not return requests for comment.

"I think, from people I talked to, they're shocked and disappointed," Seawell said. "This is a big event for our county so it's a disappointment. A lot of parents are revaluating putting their kids on these rides."

It's not the first accident in the region on a ride operated by Midway of Fun.

In 2002, a Keyes boy suffered fractured wrists and two other boys had minor injuries after being thrown 5 feet from a ride at the Stanislaus County Fair in Turlock after an operator began it prematurely.

Stanislaus fair officials have sinced switched operators to Fairfield-based Butler Amusements Inc. In 2006, a 6-year-old Stockton boy plunged 90 feet to his death from the top of a Ferris wheel run by Butler at the San Joaquin County Fair. Investigators determined the boy tried to climb out of his seat.

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