Distressing video reveals how wheelchair-bound Universal Studios guest was killed by rollercoaster
Distressing video reveals how wheelchair-bound Universal Studios guest was killed by rollercoaster
Newly released bodycam footage captured the distressing moments after a wheelchair-bound man was battered to death while riding a roller coaster at Universal Studios Florida last fall.
“One of those ride carts – it’s just like, blood,” one person can be heard telling officers after they arrived at the Stardust Racers roller coaster at Epic Universe – a part of Universal Resort — in Orlando.
There they found the unresponsive body of 32-year-old Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, who was on the ride with his girlfriend on Sept. 17 when he suddenly passed out – and was left tossing around the ride with his head slamming into the cart.
“He was strapped in, but then he passed out and went unconscious,” somebody was heard telling police in the footage, obtained by News 6.
Rodriguez rushed to a hospital, but was later declared dead from “multiple blunt impact injuries.”
His traumatized girlfriend was also heard describing the harrowing moments she battled to keep him alive on the ride.
“He kept hitting his head. I tried to hold him so he doesn’t hit his head anymore,” she told officers in the video.
Rodriguez was wheelchair bound due to a prior spinal injury, but workers insisted he had been securely fastened into his seat on the coaster, which speeds up to 62 mph across its 5,000-foot track.
Rodriguez’s girlfriend still said she watched him lift from his seat and hit his head on a bar after the ride took off.
“I saw him on the first drop. I saw him hit his head,” she said in the footage. “I tried to hold him. I couldn’t hold him. Another one, he hit his head. He just went up and hit,” she said.
Rodriguez suffered “severe facial trauma” and a “significant amount of blood loss,” according to a report from the incident, which left witnesses “shocked” by the state of his body after the ride.
But the death was later declared an accident after investigators determined the ride staff had followed all safety procedures properly, News 6 reported.
Nevertheless, when the ride reopened, it included a requirement that any handicapped people must be able to walk on their own power in order to ride the coaster.
