Family of 6-Year-Old Who Died in Amusement Park Ride Fall Awarded $205M

A jury in Colorado awarded $205 million to the family of a 6-year-old girl who died after falling from an amusement park ride in 2021.

The jury award, which was reported by The Denver Post, NBC affiliate KUSA and CBS affiliate KCNC, comes four years after the family of Wongel Estifanos filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

Estifanos fell to her death on Sept. 5, 2021, while the young girl was visiting Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs with relatives.

“[Her] uncle eventually took Wongel, two of his own children, his wife and another relative onto the Haunted Mine Drop,” according to a complaint that was previously obtained by PEOPLE. “When the ride came to stop at the bottom of the mine shaft, Wongel’s uncle checked to see whether Wongel had enjoyed the ride.”

However, the uncle was soon “stricken with terror to see that Wongel was not in her seat.” Then he saw her body at the bottom of the mine shaft.

“Wongel had fallen to her death, suffering numerous fractures, brain injuries and internal and external lacerations,” the complaint continued. “As Wongel’s uncle and other relatives on the ride screamed in horror and tried to get out of the ride to run to Wongel, the ride would not release them, and pulled them 110 feet back up to the top of the mine shaft.”

The complaint cited a report from the State of Colorado investigators, who claimed that Wongel plunged from the ride because she was sitting on top of her two seat belts instead of wearing them across her body.

Investigators reported that an alarm system alerted ride workers of an issue and prevented the operators from dispatching the ride. The employees, who were hired within two months prior to the incident, then “took several incorrect actions and reset the ride seatbelt monitors which allowed them to dispatch the ride,” according to the findings. 

Without being properly harnessed, Wongel became separated from her seat during the 110-foot drop and fell to the bottom of the attraction’s shaft, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s Division of Oil and Public Safety investigators said.

The report stated that the incident “was the result of multiple operator errors” and “violations of the Colorado Amusement Rides and Devices Regulations, and enforcement will be pursued.”

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According to The Denver Post, the jury found the defendants named in the family’s suit — Glenwood Caverns Holdings, the park’s parent company, and Soaring Eagle, which designed the ride —  liable for $82 million in non-economic damages and $123 million in punitive damage to the Estifanos family. Their decision came on Friday, Sept. 19.

In a statement to PEOPLE on Monday, Sept. 22,  Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park said: “Our hearts go out to the family of Wongel Estifanos and everyone affected by the tragic accident that happened on September 5, 2021.”

“While the jury allocated significant fault on the other defendant, Soaring Eagle, Inc., the size of the total jury verdict award puts the existence of Glenwood Caverns at serious risk. If the jury verdict remains as it is, hundreds of local jobs are in peril,” the park added, faulting Soaring Eagle for manufacturing the Haunted Mine Drop ride with a defective restraint system that the park says caused the incident.

“Soaring Eagle certified to Glenwood Caverns that the ride met all applicable standards, but that was not true,” their statement alleged. “They failed to perform the required engineering and risk analyses that would have undoubtedly prevented this death. In addition, Soaring Eagle was aware of two prior ejections from this same restraint design—information they hid from the world.”

“Glenwood Caverns was devastated by this accident and worked with independent engineers (and not with Soaring Eagle) to redesign and re-engineer the ride to prevent an accident like this from ever occurring again,” the park continued.

PEOPLE contacted Dan Caplis, an attorney representing Wongel’s family for comment. In an interview with KUSA, Caplis said Soaring Eagle no longer exists, adding, “That’s going to be litigated after this trial. So there’s not a clear answer to that at this point.”

On the significance of the $205 million jury award, the attorney told KUSA: “The whole purpose of the law on punitive damages is ‘Learn the lesson, make the world safer, make sure this never happens again. And that’s been the parents’ quest from day one.”

“Wongel’s parents are very grateful to the jury for speaking the truth and holding this corporation responsible,” Caplis added, according to KCNC.