An Arizona man said he climbed out of a moving roller coaster after his safety bar unlatched on Sunday, and the dizzying escape was caught on camera.
The man, who said he was celebrating his niece’s birthday at Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix, told NBC affiliate KPNX he was riding Desert Storm, a double-looping roller coaster, when his lap bar unlatched just seconds after the ride began.
He asked to remain unidentified, but shared cell phone video of the coaster calamity with KPNX.
"We start the climb, and you hear the click of the chain of the normal roller coaster," the man told the Phoenix outlet. "We get just about to the top and I hear a click different from the click of the chain taking us up and so I checked my lap bar one last time and it released."
He quickly decided to climb out of the ride and onto the cat walk, which he thinks may have saved his life, he told KPNX.
"I had mere seconds to act on whether I stayed on or got off," the man said.
He told KPNX that the ride's operator didn’t notice what happened until he was on the ground.
"She should have been watching that car and when she saw me climbing out she should have been able to hit an emergency release, should have been able to do something," the man said.
He recalled hearing the lap bar click into place before the ride took off, but said the operator never physically checked to make sure it was latched properly.
"I pushed up on mine. She looked. She walked away," the man said.
He told KPNX that he filed an incident report with the park, but was not given a copy.
"I think the scariest part was the negligence of their part and just the absolute carelessness that they had throughout the entire thing," the man said.
While the man said he thinks park regulations should be stricter, Arizona does not regulate its amusement parks, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. State law requires parks to have private insurance companies inspect rides annually.
"100 percent needs to change. I think all amusement parks that basically have people's lives in their hands need to be better regulated," the man said to KPNX.
Castles N’ Coasters did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.
