Teen girl loses toe in horrific fairground incident after being crushed in queue for ride
A teen girl has lost her toe in a horrific fairground incident after being crushed in the queue for a ride.
Millie Taylor, from Scotland, was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery following the gory incident at the International Ayr Show over the weekend (9 September).
Mother Ashley Clark was left understandably horrified after seeing the 'bone hanging out' of her daughter's foot.
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Ashley, 35, has since opened up about the grim ordeal which took place when Millie was waiting to get on the popular Toxic ride on the Low Green with her nine-year-old cousin Carter.
The mum claimed that Millie took one step onto the platform at the ride and had her foot crushed by a barrier which drops down to allow the ride to take off.
The mechanical piece of equipment allegedly trapped Millie's foot.
Recalling the situation, Ashley began: "She went to walk up just before the ride started, and she took an extra step onto the platform.
"The platform fencing has come down on her foot and it’s been crushed."
Millie, who was wearing white Converse trainers at the time, limped over to her mum, who was standing on the other side of the ride, with 'all the colour drained from her face'.
"You could see her bone hanging out," Ashley revealed. "I was in a complete panic, I started running around looking for first aiders but I couldn’t see any.
"Eventually I got the police who got first aiders and paramedics."
When police were finally able to take Millie's shoe off, Ashley 'couldn’t bear to look at it'.
She said: "Her toe had been completely ripped off."
Staff who operated the ride have since been accused of placing Millie on the stairs and continuing to operate the ride.
Another mum who was present claimed she rushed to Millie’s aid as she was 'about to collapse' from the stairs at the side of the ride.
Joanne Young, 45, a trained first aider from Coatbridge, said her daughter, Robyn, who is also 13, was queuing behind Millie and noticed that the staff were telling kids to keep moving up before the incident.
"I noticed the guy had sat Millie down at the side of the stairs, she was chalk white and she looked like she was going to pass out," she told Ayrshire Live.
"I rushed over, she looked down at her foot, I looked down at the same time, we both saw the bone sticking out. She just collapsed at that point, head-first off the stairs."
Joanne added: "I lay her on the ground. Whilst we were working on her, the ride still continued above our heads."
Millie was subsequently given morphine to ease the pain before being taken to hospital by ambulance and had to get emergency surgery over the weekend to salvage what was left of her pinky toe.
At the hospital, the teenager had to go under the knife where surgeons shaved the exposed bone and managed to pull the skin over.
Sorry for that image.
And it wasn't just her pinky toe that was impacted as another three toes were crushed in the incident but were thankfully saved.
Ashley has since called for a 'further' investigation into the matter, claiming: "The way the staff handled it was ridiculous, where was the sense of health and safety?
"They never got any medical attention at all for my daughter."
The mum-of-three continued: "I was standing there saying 'the bone is hanging out her foot,' the woman just carried on with the ride as normal, whilst Millie was lying on the ground.
"It needs to be investigated further, it should never have happened."
A spokesperson for South Ayrshire Council said: "This was a deeply distressing incident and our thoughts are with the injured child and their family.
"The council checks that fairground operators have the required certification and insurance in place prior to issuing any licence to operate.
"However, how people access rides and how they are run is the responsibility of their operators."
They continued: "The Health and Safety Executive would be the authority who would carry out any investigation as required."
A HSE spokesperson said: “We are aware of the incident and making enquiries.”
The Heath and Safety Executive has been contacted for comment.
The Ayrshire Post was unable to contact the ride operator for comment.
Rhiannon Ingle