Drop the Kid and No One Gets Hurt

You and your toddler are dangling 35 feet above ground on a broken amusement park ride. What are you going to do now?

I'd be clinging to my daughter for dear life – screw the crazy people on the ground telling me to just let go and it will be fine. One Florida mum had a much firmer grip on reality this weekend (or a much closer relationship with the Big One Upstairs). When emergency officials instructed Sherri Pinkerton to drop her little girl from the stalled Crazy Bus at the Family Days celebration, she did. The girl landed safely in the arms of a police officer.

Firefighters rushed with a ladder to rescue Pinkerton, who was hanging on for dear life from the Ferris wheel-like ride. Officials said families were exiting the ride when it suddenly started moving again, and Pinkerton and her daughter were swept along for the ride. She clung to her daughter with one hand and the ride with the other, but when people on the ground saw she was losing her hold on the ride, they told her to drop the girl.

I've got to give Pinkerton an incredible amount of credit. If she hadn't let go, this story may not have the happy ending it has. But I don't know if I would have had the intestinal fortitude to just let go. Could you?

Image: Corey Leopold