{"id":212534,"date":"2026-03-31T02:45:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/212534\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:45:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:45:33","slug":"distressing-bodycam-shows-moments-after-disabled-man-was-bashed-to-death-while-riding-new-universal-orlando-rollercoaster-with-girlfriend-crying-i-saw-him-hit-his-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/212534\/","title":{"rendered":"Distressing bodycam shows moments after disabled man was bashed to death while riding new Universal Orlando rollercoaster, with girlfriend crying: ‘I saw him hit his head’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Footage has emerged detailing the distressing moments after a disabled man was fatally injured aboard a rollercoaster at Universal Studios Orlando<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, 32, died of blunt force trauma after riding the Stardust Racers ride in the Florida<\/a> theme park last September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deputies raced to the theme park to find emergency workers performing CPR on Zavala, who used a wheelchair, the series of videos show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

His girlfriend\u00a0Javiliz Cruz-Robles watched on as the teams performed the life saving measures, and later gave a short statement to one deputy, the videos show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Zavala, <\/p>\n

Zavala, seen here,\u00a0\u00a0died of blunt force trauma after riding the Stardust Racers ride in the Florida theme park last September<\/p>\n

\"Emergency <\/p>\n

Emergency teams are seen here performing chest compressions on Zavala beside the rollercoaster<\/p>\n

\"Javiliz <\/p>\n

Javiliz Cruz-Robles is seen here speaking with a deputy at the scene as workers tried to revive her boyfriend<\/p>\n

The deputy recording the exchange asked: Who pushed it? The ride workers?’, to which she responded ‘yes’.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.’<\/p>\n

In another video deputies are seen arriving at the amusement park in numbers, with one asking another: ‘What happened or what’s going on?’<\/p>\n

‘I have no idea.\u00a0He was on the ride. From what the medical services told me, it sounds like a massive cardiac event,’ another said.<\/p>\n

In another, a deputy could be heard saying that Zavala was bleeding from his head and had a ‘massive laceration’.<\/p>\n

Later one deputy walking through the scene inspected the chair that was Zavala was in with blood seen surrounding the cart.<\/p>\n

‘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?’<\/p>\n

\"Emergency <\/p>\n

Emergency teams are seen here leaving the scene with Zavala on a stretcher following the horrific incident<\/p>\n

\"Blood <\/p>\n

Blood is seen here on the rail that Zavala was sitting in, one of his shoes is still inside the cart<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The rollercoaster, seen here after reopening,\u00a0\u00a0is designed to mimic the feeling of a comet racing through space<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a subsequent interview with officers, Cruz-Robles also said that Zavala had metal rods in his back and a hip condition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Investigators who reviewed the case determined that his death was accidental and closed their probe after finding the ride functioned as normal.<\/p>\n

Stardust Racers hurtles along at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour and heights of 133 feet along a 5,000-foot track.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Universal Epic Universe’s website warns that the ride includes sudden and dramatic acceleration, climbing, tilting, inversion and dropping.<\/p>\n

The ride launched on May 22, 2025, and was one of the most highly-anticipated attractions at the theme park.<\/p>\n

It closed following Zavala’s death and reopened in October after an internal review found that it ‘functioned properly’.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Footage has emerged detailing the distressing moments after a disabled man was fatally injured aboard a rollercoaster at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1761,28,115,139,141,140],"class_list":{"0":"post-212534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-orlando-headlines","13":"tag-orlando-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}