GREENSBORO - Brenda Kindle and Angela Roach are still shaken from the traumatic experience Friday night at the Central Carolina Fair. So are their children.
The mothers saw their sons, 5-year-old Hunter and 7-year-old Carlos, stuck on a tilting Ferris wheel ride after a worker fell while trying to rescue them when the ride stalled. Cell phone video showed Carlos and Hunter leaning sideways in their cart, almost at a 90-degree angle.
"All you can hear is your seven-year-old child screaming and saying someone help us please someone help us. They are crying at the top of their lungs," said Kindle. "That was the most traumatic experience for me as a mother. I felt helpless that I couldn't do anything at all."
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Carlos described the terrifying moments of being stuck on the ride.
"I thought that something bad was going to happen like one of us was going to pass away," said Carlos.
The worker fell while trying to help, causing even more of a panic among the crowd gathered around the ride.
"It started shaking faster and that's when he fell off and it snapped," said Carlos. "We flew back and that's when I hit my head when we flew back."
Parents on the ground could only watch as their kids swung back and forth.
"I could see Hunter's face as the thing started tilting," said Roach, Hunter's mother. "All I could do was run and scream and beg them to stop that ride. It was already halfway tilted. Anymore and they would've been out."
"I thought we were gonna die." 7-yo Carlos White describes the feeling of being stuck on the Ferris wheel when the fair worker fell. @WFMY pic.twitter.com/VSO3efPyoA
— Ben Powell (@benpowelltv) September 16, 2017
Saturday, both mothers made sure to hug their sons extra tight.
"I just can't quit touching him. I want hugs. I want kisses," said Roach. "I want you to aggravate me as much as you want to. Aggravate me, please. They are our babies. I am so blessed that God was with both of them."
Fortunately, neither was seriously injured in the accident. Carlos bumped his head and Hunter suffered some minor bruises.
"The only way that my son and her son made it out of there was God," said Kindle. "There wasn't a physical person there but both of those kids had to have angels holding them in the cart."
Both Roach and Kindle took their kids to the hospital as a precaution. The fair employee was treated and released and was back at work Saturday.
The Ferris wheel was fixed and approved by the state department of labor and was back in use Saturday.
However, it sounds like neither boy will be going back to the fair anytime soon.
"I don't want to do no more rides at the fair unless if it's a bumper car," Carlos said. "That's the only thing I might do."