Two girls were hospitalized after they were thrown from a Ferris wheel on Saturday afternoon at a festival in Louisiana, authorities said. One suffered broken bones and the other may have bleeding in her brain, CBS News Chicago reported.Photos and video taken at the scene appeared to show the Ferris wheel â at the annual Harvest Festival in New Roads, some 40 miles northwest of Baton Rouge â paused mid-ride with one of the baskets that seat riders tipped upside down. Witnesses told CBS affiliate WAFB that the girls were ejected from the basket while the Ferris wheel was rotating. Two girls fell at least 20 feet onto a steel platform below, while a third clung to the basket, which was suspended about 15 feet in the air.”As it was going around, it was just like, stuck at an angle and they flipped out of it,” Ronald Brasseaux, who witnessed the incident, said. Brasseaux told WAFB that he’d felt unsafe while riding the same Ferris wheel the previous day. “They need to take this thing down,” he told the station.An investigation into what went wrong is underway at the State Fire Marshal’s Office, which is required to perform safety checks on rides and attractions like the ones at New Roads’ Harvest Festival, according to WAFB. The office told the station in the aftermath of Saturday’s incident that only the Ferris wheel and one other nearby ride were closed to the public. Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff Rene’ Thibodeaux, whose office responded to the incident, told WAFB that it happened around 12 p.m.. The Harvest Festival takes place annually in New Roads and “is dedicated to supporting the local agriculture-based community,” according to its website.CBS News reached out to the sheriff and fire marshal’s offices for more details.
