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Fireball ride is similar in name, not design of Ohio ride

OBSERVER Photo by Amanda Dedie This ride varies differently from the "Fireball" ride in Ohio, the latter of which swings passengers around, while the Dunkirk version just goes in a circle.

Similar in name, but not in design, the Fireball ride at the Chautauqua County Fair is nothing like the one that caused the unfortunate death of one and injuries of seven others in Ohio, and should be considered safe for fair-goers to ride.

On Wednesday, a high schooler was killed and seven more injured at the Ohio State Fair after the Fireball ride detached and flung the passengers through the air.

David Sutton of Bates Brothers, the organization that rolls the rides into town for the midway of the fairgrounds, wants everyone to be rest assured that though their ride has the same name, it is vastly different from the ride in Ohio.

“We have a ride here called the Fireball, but its nowhere near the same ride,” said Sutton. “It doesn’t even look the same. Our Fireball is a superloop — it moves in a big, tall loop, like the ring of fire.”

Chautauqua County Fair Director Dave Wilson, too, wants everyone to be assured that the rides at the Chautauqua County Fair are as safe as could be — and wouldn’t run if there was even a shadow of a doubt that something was wrong.

“The rides are all inspected before they open up on Monday. So there’s New York State amusement ride inspectors that come down. They’ve got diagrams of all the machines, they inspect, they know what to look for,” Wilson said. “I’m not a ride inspector. We were inspected, the carnival,(and) Bates Brothers are conscientious people.

“It’s a tragedy, what happened in Ohio. You don’t know — it might have been metal stress, who knows, who can speculate? … You just pray to God that when you’re driving your car down the road, someone doesn’t kill you. It’s the same thing. I feel bad for everyone, because it was a tragic situation.”

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