PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A fun park visit in Port St. Lucie ended in tragedy after a six-year-old girl died following a go-kart accident at Urban Air Adventure Park on Saturday night. Port St. Lucie Police responded to the incident, and the child was airlifted to HCA Lawnwood Hospital, where she passed away on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The park, which normally would be open, was closed today by managers. Authorities are working to determine the cause of the tragic accident. However, one resident who witnessed multiple prior incidents says the go-karts have long been a concern.<\/p>\n
Stephon Jennings, who witnessed previous crashes while filming promotional videos for the fun park, immediately suspected the cause. \u201cThe news article I saw didn’t say what caused it, but I commented on it, and I was like, I am 100% sure this has to be a go-kart accident,\u201d Jennings said.<\/p>\n
Jennings stated that while the prior accidents he witnessed were not fatal, they were troubling.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven at those levels, the carts will still just scrub into the wall. And honestly, the workers weren’t really doing any due diligence to educate the kids, let them know how to actually properly drive the car. It’s more of a free-for-all when you get out there,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
See also: Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach Co. launch deck of playing card featuring cold cases<\/a><\/p>\n The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has oversight of go-kart tracks, as they fall under their jurisdiction for carnival rides, and a state investigation into the crash is now underway. Port St. Lucie Police also notified OSHA, meaning multiple agencies are involved in determining how the tragedy occurred.<\/p>\n Jennings claims that when he raised concerns about the go-kart track safety, the owners did not take him seriously. \u201cNot just from the management and the staff at the lower level. When you go up to the higher levels, like the owners and everything, and you’re expressing these issues, they kind of just shove you underneath the rug,\u201d Jennings said.<\/p>\n The six-year-old victim\u2019s identity has not been released.<\/p>\n The parent company for this fun park has been sued and settled multiple times in the past. One case involved a 10-year-old who fell 20 feet off a zipline but recovered from the fall. Urban Air has not yet provided a comment on the fatal accident.<\/p>\n Find more ways to stay up to date with your latest local news. Sign up for our newsletter <\/a>to get the day’s top headlines delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our YouTube channel <\/a>for the biggest stories and can’t miss video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A fun park visit in Port St. Lucie ended in tragedy after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-79305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79305","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=79305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}