Atlantic Police Chief Steve Green said today (Monday), Federal and State Inspectors are set to arrive in Atlantic by around mid-day, to look at The Octopus amusement ride on the Cass County Fairgrounds. The ride was the scene of an accident Sunday evening that sent five people to the Cass County Memorial Hospital. One of the injured, a teenage male, was later transferred to a hospital in Omaha for further evaluation and treatment. (Click on the individual pictures to open a separate page, and click again to enlarge the image)

Atlantic Police Chief Steve Green said a pin that holds the bulb/support rod section of the ride apparently sheared-off prior to the accident. You can see the apparatus at the center of this photo by KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

The accident happened at around 7:30-p.m., when a pin on top of the ride sheared-off, causing some of the buckets carrying passengers to slam into the ground.

Divots dug into the ground by the impact of the rides’ buckets.

Marks could be seen on the grass where the bottom of the buckets dug into the ground.

If you look closely, you can see grass hanging from the bottom of the bucket in the top center of this pic. The bucket had impacted the ground.

Green said the Inspectors are coming from the Iowa Department of Labor and U-S Consumer Product Safety Commission. Green said it’s unusual for this type of accident to happen, here. He said “We’ve been fortunate. We haven’t had anything like this at the Cass County Fair in my memory, and I’ve been coming to this fair since I was a kid. It’s just one of those things, I guess.”

The names of those injured have not been officially released, but early reports from law enforcement said the injured included an adult female and four teens (two females and two males). Green says two of the teens walked home following the accident. Their mother took them to the hospital.The ride is officially shut down on this, the last full day of the fair.