A shocking video filmed at an amusement park in the south-western Turkish province of Antalya has been making the rounds online for showing the exact moment a funfair ride broke and came crashing to the ground with multiple riders on board.
As seen in the footage, a number of passengers had been strapped in to enjoy the swinging pendulum-style ride when it malfunctioned at the Ataturk Park, in the district of Muratpasa, over the weekend.
In the clip, riders—including young children—can be seen flying back and forth before a huge crash is heard and chaos breaks out, with members of the public running over to where the seating section of the ride fell to the ground.
It seems the circular unit filled with seats broke off its arm and landed upside-down, leaving the passengers trapped behind the restraints. Children can be heard shouting in panic as people try to free them from the holds.
In an incredibly lucky turn of events, UNILAD reported that none of the passengers were fatally injured in the incident. “Firefighters arrived on the scene to help free the children from the seats, with images showing them left hanging with their feet in the air,” the publication wrote.
After being freed, all the riders were checked over by first aiders. Other images from the park show one individual being carried away on a stretcher by paramedics, with what appears to be a neck brace wrapped around his throat.
Three children, identified as 11-year-olds Mete Atik, Yakip Bilal Salarvan and Bugra Yagiz Koyun, were found to have been injured as the seats detached from the metal arm of the ride. All three were taken to hospital for treatment.
Speaking to local media following the incident, Koyun explained he believed a “cable or something broke” while the riders were swinging on the ride. “The ride flew through the air and landed upside down. I hit my head and I also have bruising on my foot,” he continued.
Ataturk Park is listed in Tripadvisor’s top 30 attractions in Antalya, with a description dubbing it a “wonderful park, huge, clean [and] perfect for a relaxing walk with marvellous views over the Mediterranean.” Obviously, in this case, visitors did not get the same experience…
Authorities in the area have launched an investigation to determine exactly how the ride malfunctioned.
A woman who believes aliens have repeatedly abducted her in her sleep for years says they’ve left her with “weird bruises and punctures” on her skin. Maria Leiva, 51, claims the abductions have been going on for as long as she can remember and that she’s come into contact with extraterrestrial life numerous times.
As initially reported by The Mirror, the mother from Ramsgate, Kent, explained she often wakes up to find bruises or finger marks on her body which she’s absolutely certain are evidence of an extraterrestrial visit.
Leiva also added that she sometimes wakes up in locations far away from her house with no idea of how she got there in the first place. The woman even shared that she once had to get a taxi back home in the morning due to how far away she’d gotten during her nighttime adventures.
“For as long as I can remember I have had these encounters,” Leiva told the publication. “The earliest memories were from when I was around four years old and I knew it was happening. I remember being sad at night and going out onto the terrace at my family home in Columbia and crying out to the stars. I would ask them why they left me here and I would tell them I wanted to go back home,” she continued.
But the woman’s claims aren’t solely based on what some might simply call sleepwalking—Leiva also believes she’s capable of seeing aliens in the sky at night. “I have always been able to see things in the sky, as well as actually seeing beings as well,” she explained to The Mirror. “I am sometimes awakened by telepathic communications between the hours of two and four in the morning, being told to wake up and go to the window as something is out there. Sometimes I can record videos of what is out there, but sometimes I can only take photos.”
As interesting as Leiva’s alleged gift sounds, the mother also shared that it is an unpredictable one. “I don’t have any control over when it happens, but in the past two weeks I have seen two flying objects in the sky, up to three times in one night.”
“There can also be quiet patches where there isn’t much happening,” she added, “but they communicate with me through my dreams and I will then know when they are visiting. When they visit, they will leave me with weird bruises on my body. I would wake up with marks on my body, bruises, finger marks, punctures in my skin and cuts as well, and this is how I’d know something had happened in the night.”
And it seems, Leiva’s not the only one in her family to be blessed (or cursed, it’s all a matter of perspective) with such a gift. She claims her own daughter has had extraterrestrial experiences too, “My daughter also has these experiences and she has for her whole life, but we never really speak about it with people. She believes she can see them too, seeing her first UFO when she was ten. We were living in Hackney [London] and it was one morning when I was taking her to school she looked into the sky and could see the shape of a UFO in the sky, she has now seen several since,” Leiva explained.
“At the beginning, when I was younger, I wasn’t sharing much of what I was experiencing as these aren’t things you’d talk about much and if I shared it people would think I was crazy. As I got older I started to share little parts of what was happening with friends but I didn’t want to scare people.”
Leiva further told the publication that although her parents knew of her extraterrestrial visits, they never spoke about it. “There was one particular time in Columbia at my parents’ house where one night I was taken in my sleep and I woke up in a completely different place and I was left quite far away. I had to get a taxi home, and I didn’t even have my house keys so I had to knock on the door. My dad answered and he was so puzzled as to what had happened and why I had left and was only just coming home,” Leiva recounted.