The grieving parents of a 14-year-old boy who died after falling from a Florida amusement park ride have been awarded a $310 million sum from the ride’s Austrian manufacturer, attorneys announced.
Tyre Sampson, of Missouri, fell over 200 feet to his death while on a spring break trip to Orlando’s ICON Park in 2022, NBC News reported.
The teen football player was nearly 100 pounds over the ride’s 285-pound weight limit, and had his seat manually adjusted by park staff to fit in, but was still allowed to get on the Orlando FreeFall — a 430-foot drop tower.
His mother, Mekia Dodd, and father, Yarnell Sampson, were awarded the multi-million dollar payout by a Florida jury on Thursday in a court appearance that the Dölsach-based manufacturer, Funtime Handels GmbH, did not show up to.
Sampson’s family was represented by notable activist attorney Ben Crump.
“This verdict is a step forward in holding corporations accountable for the safety of their products,” Crump said in a statement obtained by the outlet. “The jury’s decision confirms what we have long argued: Tyre’s death was the result of blatant negligence and a failure to prioritize safety over profits.”
The parents settled with ICON Park and owner-operator Slingshot Group March 2023 for an undisclosed amount.
“Why my child got to be the one?” the older Sampson asked through tears outside of the court house Thursday evening. “Ain’t no money going to solve this problem … put a Band-Aid on it, maybe.”
The teen’s mother voiced her disappointment at Funtime refusing to come to court over the nearly three-year proceedings.
“I wanted them to face me, to apologize,” Dodd told Fox 35 Orlando. “I got none of that — no apologies, no anything.”
The ride manufacturer could lose its right to operate in the U.S. and face additional fines if they fail to pay the family.
“They may try to fight it and say that our justice system can’t impose a judgment over there,” Michael Haggard, another family attorney, said. “But they do business here. There’s where the Department of Commerce … the State Department can get involved, saying, ‘If you don’t recognize a judgment in the United States, well, then you don’t do business here.’”
Dodd personally attended the destruction of the Orlando FreeFall in March 2023, the New York Post reported.
“Unfortunately, when he passed, I wasn’t there for him. So, I had to do this,” she told reporters at the time. “I didn’t want to come under these circumstances, but … I had to. I gotta say, my emotions are all over.”
The state of Florida has also already hit the ride’s owners with a $250,000 fine, and the legislature passed the Tyre Sampson Act in 2023 to strengthen amusement park ride safety — a law that Sampson’s parents now want to become federal.
