Adventureland ride outage leaves 15 riders stranded, no injuries reported

A stalled Wave Twister ride at Adventureland left children dangling for more than three hours Friday night before Suffolk County police and firefighters brought them down one by one, with no injuries initially reported. The rescue, at the East Farmingdale amusement park off Broad Hollow Road, quickly became a test of how the county’s best-known summer attraction handles a ride failure when families are already packed onto the grounds.

Suffolk County police said First Precinct officers responded around 7:25 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on June 19 after a 911 call reported people stuck on the ride. Crews from the East Farmingdale, West Babylon and Amityville fire departments joined police at the scene and used ladder trucks and a cherry picker to reach riders. The final rider was brought down at 10:39 p.m., ending a rescue that stretched for more than three hours. Reports varied on the number trapped, with some saying 15 riders and others 16, including one 5-year-old with a 40-year-old parent and other children between ages 8 and 12.

The scene underscored how quickly a summer amusement incident can turn into a public safety operation on Long Island. ABC7 New York described firefighters removing one child at a time as riders sat with their legs dangling in their seats on the Wave Twister. Adventureland later reopened Saturday, but the ride remained out of service, a sign that the park moved fast to restart operations while isolating the attraction involved. Adventureland opened for the 2026 season on March 20, and the outage landed during one of the busiest stretches of the year for a business that depends on warm-weather traffic.

The Wave Twister is described in one account as one of Adventureland’s newer attractions and part of the park’s Legacy Corner redevelopment. That matters because any malfunction on a newer ride raises immediate questions about maintenance, inspection routines and how quickly staff can coordinate with emergency responders when a car or platform stalls. For parents deciding whether to visit the park with young children, the most immediate question is not just whether Adventureland is open, but which rides are running and whether a closure is tied to a mechanical issue or a precautionary shutdown.

Adventureland’s safety history will also shadow the incident. The park had two fatal incidents in 2005, including the death of an 18-year-old employee struck by the Lady Bug kiddie coaster and the death of a 45-year-old woman thrown from the Top Scan ride. Against that backdrop, the fact that this rescue ended without reported injuries will be welcomed by families, but the shutdown of the Wave Twister makes clear that the park’s response will be measured not just by reopening, but by whether visitors leave confident that the system worked.