LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A teenager whose feet were severed last summer in an amusement park ride accident said she could smell burning flesh, but didn't realize she was injured.
Kaitlyn Lasitter of Louisville made the comments in a court document filed in Jefferson Circuit Court on Wednesday. The comments are Kaitlyn's first public statements since the June 21 accident at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom.
In the statement, Kaitlyn, now 14, described going to the park with friends and getting on the Superman Tower of Power ride for a second time when the ride broke. The teen said they rode once with no problem. With no line for the ride, they switched seats and took the 177-foot, high speed ride a second time.
The teenage girls felt a jolt, "like a whipping sound or something," Kaitlyn said.
"We looked up, and there were a bunch of cables falling, and this was only about 20 feet off the ground," she said. "There was a cable hanging below me, there were cables all over my friends."
The ride kept going up as the girls screamed for someone to stop the ride, Kaitlyn said. The falling cables and cut and bruised Kaitlyn and her friends.
"I remember smoke and the smell of burning," Kaitlyn said. "I felt like I was going to die."
Lasitter and her parents are suing Six Flags over the accident. The lawsuit claims the park failed to maintain the equipment and ensure riders' safety. The state and Lasitter's attorney are having parts of the ride tested to determine what caused the cables to fail.
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