Chapter 3 #3
Cathy: John turned up, closely followed by Pea and Alex.
I said an ambulance was on the way. I assumed they knew what had happened, but Pea didn’t.
Her eyes went really wide and she asked me to tell her what was going on.
John was pacing, running his hands through his hair.
He looked like he might explode at any minute.
I told Pea there’d been an accident on the 360, that someone was trapped.
Pea: I didn’t understand. I knew how rollercoasters worked.
One carriage set off, and then when it was at the furthest point of the track, a second one went.
It wasn’t possible to send the second carriage going before the first one was at the right point.
It was built into the mechanism that it wouldn’t let you do that.
I started to say some of this, but Dad looked up at me and told me to shut up.
He’d never spoken to me like that before. I just stared at him.
Alex: I knew John pretty well, and I’d seen him angry, like the time Pea and I dyed our hair red and got dye all over the tiles and several towels.
But that day was something else. The rage, or maybe the fear, was radiating off him.
He couldn’t keep still. And when he came close, I thought I caught a whiff of stale booze.
John: Drinking? It was three in the afternoon. Of course I hadn’t been drinking.
Cathy: When the ambulance arrived, we all rushed over there. Me and John, Pea and Alex, and the paramedics, of course. The park was deserted by then, and it had the kind of hush you only heard after it was closed. But as we approached the 360, I could hear a woman crying.
Pea: It was the mother of the boy. She was crying. Wailing. She sounded completely deranged.
Alex: God, yes, I remember. There was a small crowd of people waiting just outside the entrance to the ride.
Presumably friends and family of the people in the carriages.
They’d ascertained that only one person was hurt, this young boy, and his mum was hysterical.
Something felt off about it, and then I realised it was that I couldn’t hear him crying.
He was totally silent. I thought maybe he was dead.
Cathy: No, there was never any suggestion that it was a fatal accident.
John: All I kept thinking was what if someone had been killed? What if that little boy was dead? It would end us.
Terry: My name’s Terry Blakely. I was one of the paramedics at the scene that day.
We spoke to John Hunter, the owner, and he took us over to the little booth where the ride was operated from.
It was inside and it was badly lit. I asked John if he could bring the carriages back in slowly and safely, and he said he could.
He started the thing up and pushed a button to get the first carriage moving.
My colleague had warned the people inside it what was going to happen.
When the carriage was safely in the starting position, John released the safety bars.
I held up both hands and asked the people in the carriage not to move.
And then I went to them one by one, checking they weren’t hurt or bleeding or in pain.
There were a couple of teenagers in the back row who had some pain in their necks.
I thought it was probably whiplash but I radioed for help just in case.
We got them on stretchers so they could be checked over.
Then it was time for the second carriage to be brought in.
John did the honours. I noticed that his hands were shaking.
Pea: God, I don’t think anyone was breathing.
Alex: The carriage came in, painfully slowly. There were eight people sitting in it, in pairs. Their faces were white. We all looked at the little boy in the front row. Christ, he couldn’t have been more than eight.
Terry: I repeated the instructions I’d given to the first carriage.
Nobody move. I went to the boy first, since he was definitely injured.
He was speaking, though. Conscious. His mum rushed over and I had to physically hold her back.
I whispered to her that it wouldn’t be long, but we had to do this properly.
We got him out and onto a stretcher. His legs were spattered with blood but I was pretty sure they weren’t broken.
I told his mum she could come over, as long as she just held his hand and didn’t try to move any parts of his body.
After that, getting the others out was fairly quick and straightforward.
And then we took those three to the hospital, the boy’s mother holding his hand all the way.
John: It wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. Thank Christ for that.
The boy’s legs were injured, but not seriously.
And the paramedic claimed that another two people might need to be treated for whiplash, but I was pretty sure that was overkill.
I breathed out, long and hard. Cathy reached for my hand.
Cathy: I didn’t know what would happen with the park. I didn’t care. I was just so glad that little boy was going to be all right.
Pea: I hate myself for it, but you can’t help what your brain thinks, can you? One of the first things I thought was that this might mean that AJ and Zak’s trip would be off.
Cathy: No one was thinking about the AJ Silver trip, no. That was the least of our worries, at that point.
John: It definitely entered my head, yes.
Not at the time, when we were waiting to see that the boy was going to be okay, but a bit later.
I remember thinking that we needed to keep this quiet, make sure the AJ Silver crew didn’t get any wind of it.
I wasn’t prepared for a stupid accident to derail everything.
Pea: The police came when we were having tea.
Shepherd’s pie. None of us were really eating it, just pushing it around.
They asked Mum and Dad some questions and said the ride would need to remain closed until it had been properly checked over and repaired if necessary.
Dad was in a horrible mood after they left.
Cathy: I called the hospital that evening and was told the boy had been checked over and sent home.
He had a few cuts and bruises on his legs, but he was fine.
I stood in the hall for a long time after we ended the call.
I didn’t realise I was crying until Pea came out of the lounge and put her arms around me.
Pea: I was on my way to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, and Mum was in the hallway, weeping, the phone in her hand, but not connected to anyone.
I took it from her gently and hung it up.
I gave her a hug, asked what had happened.
Was it the boy, I wondered? Was it worse than we’d thought?
She just said, ‘He’s okay. He’s fine.’ Over and over.
And I realised it was relief. That’s why she was so moved.
John: Of course we made sure we knew the boy was fine first. That was our top priority.
Once we knew that, Cathy visibly relaxed, and then she said she was going up to bed.
That she was exhausted from it. Sebastian was already in bed.
I waited for Pea to go up the stairs, and then I called Tony Hastings, at the local paper.
Tony: Tony Hastings. Yes, I was the editor of the local paper back then.
I’d known John for years. I’d already heard about the accident when he called.
He sounded shaken. Asked if I could possibly keep it out of the paper.
I said it was too late, that we’d already gone to print.
He got angry then. Asked how we’d done a story without any input from Wildworld.
And I told him we’d been calling Wildworld’s phone number for hours, hoping to ask if anyone would speak to us.
He went quiet for a moment, and then he said there’d been no one in the office, that they had closed to visitors, and everyone left onsite had been dealing with the incident.
I said I was sorry for him, but there was nothing I could do.
The printing presses were running as we spoke.
It wasn’t as if I could halt circulation.
John: I thought Tony was a good guy, but he wasn’t prepared to help me out.
Tony: He asked if it was about money. I said I didn’t know what he meant. He said, very slowly and clearly, that he was asking whether I could make the story go away if he gave me enough money.
John: I didn’t offer him money.
Tony: I asked how much we were talking about. I think he said a couple of grand. I laughed at him and ended the call.
Danny: Does anyone else have the feeling that someone’s head is going to roll for this?
John: I didn’t sleep at all that night. The next morning, I put the word out that there was a staff meeting first thing.
Everyone knew about the accident, of course.
I’d sent a few of them home early the previous day, because once we were waiting for the ambulance there was nothing much anyone could do.
We met in the food hall, everyone sitting on green plastic chairs.
I stood at the front, scanned their faces.
Said that everyone was aware there had been an incident and I needed to get to the bottom of how it had happened.
Straight away, I saw that Tim Gooding was looking down at the ground. He was a student who did a few hours for us here and there. ‘Who was manning the rollercoaster when it happened?’ I asked. I had the rota in my hand, so I knew what the answer should be.
Tim: I’m Tim Gooding. I was down on the rota to man the rollercoaster all afternoon. From one until closing.
John: Tim looked up, met my eye. But didn’t say anything. ‘It says here, on the rota,’ I continued, ‘that Tim was on the 360 yesterday afternoon.’