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Carowinds Ride Resumes After Suspenseful Sunday

Courtesy of John Metcalf

The Carowinds ride is in operation again, one day after it malfunctioned and left 64 people suspended about 200 feet for an hour.

Passengers on the WindSeeker were stranded on Sunday when a sensor was activated that turned on the ride’s safety system, causing it to stop. No one was injured.

Twenty-four year old Logan Parce was on the ride with his girlfriend. He says he just held her hand and made sure not to look down.

"It got to about the top and finished its spinning cycle and then it just kind of slowly just stopped spinning," Parce says. "And we were kind of confused and asked what was going on and then all of the sudden the loud speaker came on, told us that they're experiencing some technical difficulties, they were going to have maintenance on it – just a minute – and you know we were up there for an hour."

He says it was a scary experience for many others, including a friend of his who has a fear of heights and who they had persuaded to come along on the ride.

Credit Carowinds.com
The WindSeeker ride opened in 2012.

"There was some un-nice words and finger gestures but everything was laugh-worthy after," Parce says. 

At 300 feet, the WindSeeker is the tallest ride at Carowinds.

This is the second time, in two years that the ride malfunctioned for the same issue. Last year, two dozen people were suspended about 30 feet for nearly three hours.