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'We just dodged death!': Video shows cables on slingshot ride snapping just before launch

Posted at 7:08 AM, Aug 21, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-21 10:52:06-04

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida woman says she and her best friend got quite the scare when a cable on a bungee-style slingshot ride in Panama City shredded to strands, all without leaving the ground.

Krissy Hurst sent a video to WTXL of her recording as another pair of riders were strapped into the Vertical Accelerator ride at the Cobra Adventure Park on Front Beach Road.

She and her friend were on vacation when they ran into two men, one of whom was visiting from California, and decided to explore Panama City Beach together. Hurst says her friend was going to get on the ride, but decided not to at the last moment because she had a bad feeling about it.

Hurst ended up recording a video instead because the ride's camera system wasn't working.

In the video, the pair of men can be seen sitting in the bungee-style slingshot ride awaiting launch. Before the ride attempts to launch, Hurst's friend can be heard saying that the men will be screaming soon.

"Who knew how right she'd be," Hurst wrote in the Facebook post.

As the ride operator pulls the trigger, the cable can be seen shredding into tendrils, the ride never leaving the ground. Hurst's friend exclaims, "We just dodged death!"

The first thing that went through Hurst's head?

"The fact that my friend was going to ride it and decided not to," Hurst said. As for rides in the future, Hurst and her friend have set some boundaries.

"We soooo won't ride any kind of ride again," Hurst wrote in her post.

This story was originally published on WTXL.