The devasted father of the 14-year-old boy who plummeted to his death on an amusement park ride in Orlando, Florida, said his son asked his friend to tell his parents he loved them in case “I don’t make it down.”
Yarnell Sampson said his son Tyre Sampson panicked because he felt unsafe when the “Orlando Free-Fall” ride at ICON Park began to ascend.
“When the ride took off, that’s when he was feeling uncomfortable. He was like, ‘this thing is moving,’ you know what I’m saying. And he was like ‘what’s going on?’” Sampson told Fox 35.
“And that’s when he started freaking out,” Sampson continued.
The teen allegedly told his friend seated beside him: “If I don’t make it down, tell … Please tell my mama and daddy I love them.”
“For him to say something like that, he must have felt something,” Sampson told the news outlet.
The teen tragically fell from the ride when it was about halfway down its 430-foot descent on Thursday and later succumbed to his injuries from the fall after being rushed to a local hospital.
