A man died after falling from the top of the Giant Star Wheel Ride in Star City in Pasay on Sunday night.
Facebook user Mark KC Susano posted photos and videos of medical personnel rushing to aid the man yesterday. In the video, you can hear shouts from other amusement park goers.
Susano told Coconuts Manila through a Facebook message that he had a heavy feeling while he was going down the stairs before the time that the incident happened.
“Then I heard a loud sound. When I looked to my right, there was a guy and the next things that fell were his shoes and bag,” he said in Filipino.
“I was shocked of course, and even if I wanted to help the guy, I couldn’t because I wasn’t experienced in those kinds of things,” he added, saying the incident happened around 7:35pm.
“Nobody actually saw the person come from the giant wheel but he was identified by our ride attendant that he also rode it,” Atty. Rudolph Juralbal, the spokesperson of Star City, said in a mix of Filipino and English on Monday on GMA News’ 24 Oras.
Juralbal said personnel rushed the victim to the hospital but he was declared dead on arrival.
Susano suspects that the incident was a suicide. “We just came down from there [the Ferris wheel] and it was safe and there were barriers,” he told Coconuts Manila.
According to the investigation of Pasay authorities, the acrylic panel of the window was reportedly stripped off in one of the gondolas of the 200-foot Ferris wheel, Balitambayan reported. Another panel near it was cracked, and the grills on the window were also stretched to the outer side of the pod.
“The one that was dismantled [the panel], probably that’s where he jumped. It was really forced open and according to the ride attendants there, the victim was all by himself,” Police Senior Superintendent Noel Flores told 24 Oras in Filipino.
The Ferris wheel ride has been suspended in the meantime.
The amusement park has provided financial help to the victim’s dependents and coordinated on bringing the body of the victim to his family.
