Footage has emerged detailing the distressing moments after a disabled man was fatally injured aboard a rollercoaster at Universal Studios Orlando.
Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, 32, died of blunt force trauma after riding the Stardust Racers ride in the Florida theme park last September.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office has now released a series of bodycam clips taken from the scene that night, showing the frantic work of first responders to save him.
Deputies raced to the theme park to find emergency workers performing CPR on Zavala, who used a wheelchair, the series of videos show.
‘He’s still blue in the face’, one of the team could be heard saying in a video as they worked for just shy of 15 minutes to get him breathing again.
At one point first responders used a defibrillator on Zavala, before securing him to a stretcher and wheeling him away from the scene to a hospital where he died.
His girlfriend Javiliz Cruz-Robles watched on as the teams performed the life saving measures, and later gave a short statement to one deputy, the videos show.
‘We went on the ride, he doesn’t have any support on his legs. They pushed it about three times maybe four’, she said, referring to the knee restraint.
Zavala, seen here, died of blunt force trauma after riding the Stardust Racers ride in the Florida theme park last September
Emergency teams are seen here performing chest compressions on Zavala beside the rollercoaster
Javiliz Cruz-Robles is seen here speaking with a deputy at the scene as workers tried to revive her boyfriend
The deputy recording the exchange asked: Who pushed it? The ride workers?’, to which she responded ‘yes’.
She continued: ‘I saw him on the first drop, I saw him hit his head, I tried to hold him, I couldn’t hold him. He just went up and hit.
When asked if the seat was loose, she added: ‘It looked like it was tied, but it wasn’t – he doesn’t have support in his legs so he can’t just stay in place.’
In another video deputies are seen arriving at the amusement park in numbers, with one asking another: ‘What happened or what’s going on?’
‘I have no idea. He was on the ride. From what the medical services told me, it sounds like a massive cardiac event,’ another said.
In another, a deputy could be heard saying that Zavala was bleeding from his head and had a ‘massive laceration’.
Later one deputy walking through the scene inspected the chair that was Zavala was in with blood seen surrounding the cart.
‘I guess he wasn’t strapped in all the way’, he said. Another deputy shone his light at the cart adding: ‘Is this brain matter? Or from puking?’
Emergency teams are seen here leaving the scene with Zavala on a stretcher following the horrific incident
Blood is seen here on the rail that Zavala was sitting in, one of his shoes is still inside the cart
The rollercoaster, seen here after reopening, is designed to mimic the feeling of a comet racing through space
A doctor aboard the ride later told investigators that she saw Zavala looking ‘lifeless’ and slouched over when she came to his aid after it stopped.
In an recording of her police interview, she also told officers that his femur was broken in half and sitting on the back of his chair.
In a subsequent interview with officers, Cruz-Robles also said that Zavala had metal rods in his back and a hip condition.
Zavala’s family and their attorney Ben Crump have maintained that Zavala struck his head on a metal bar on the ride and that the ride malfunctioned.
Investigators who reviewed the case determined that his death was accidental and closed their probe after finding the ride functioned as normal.
Stardust Racers hurtles along at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour and heights of 133 feet along a 5,000-foot track.
It features two rollercoasters that race and cross paths during the ride, and creators said it was designed to mimic the feeling of a comet racing through space.
Universal Epic Universe’s website warns that the ride includes sudden and dramatic acceleration, climbing, tilting, inversion and dropping.
The ride launched on May 22, 2025, and was one of the most highly-anticipated attractions at the theme park.
It closed following Zavala’s death and reopened in October after an internal review found that it ‘functioned properly’.