A jury in Colorado has awarded $205 million to the family of 6-year-old Wongel Estifanos, who tragically died after falling from an amusement park ride in 2021.
The award, reported by The Denver Post, NBC affiliate KUSA and CBS affiliate KCNC, comes four years after Estifanos’ family filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
Wongel fell to her death on September 5, 2021, while visiting Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs with relatives.
According to a complaint previously obtained by PEOPLE, “[Her] uncle eventually took Wongel, two of his own children, his wife and another relative onto the Haunted Mine Drop. When the ride came to stop at the bottom of the mine shaft, Wongel’s uncle checked to see whether Wongel had enjoyed the ride.”
But he was soon “stricken with terror to see that Wongel was not in her seat,” later discovering her body at the bottom of the mine shaft.
“Wongel had fallen to her death, suffering numerous fractures, brain injuries and internal and external lacerations,” the complaint continued. “As Wongel’s uncle and other relatives on the ride screamed in horror and tried to get out of the ride to run to Wongel, the ride would not release them, and pulled them 110 feet back up to the top of the mine shaft.”
The complaint cited a report from State of Colorado investigators, which noted that Wongel had been sitting on top of her two seat belts instead of wearing them correctly across her body.
Investigators also reported that an alarm system alerted ride workers to an issue and prevented the operators from dispatching the ride. Employees, who had been hired within two months of the incident, “took several incorrect actions and reset the ride seatbelt monitors which allowed them to dispatch the ride,” according to the findings.
Without being properly harnessed, Wongel became separated from her seat during the 110-foot drop, falling to the bottom of the attraction’s shaft, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s Division of Oil and Public Safety investigators said.
The report concluded that the incident “was the result of multiple operator errors” and “violations of the Colorado Amusement Rides and Devices Regulations, and enforcement will be pursued.”
According to The Denver Post, the jury held the defendants named in the family’s suit—Glenwood Caverns Holdings, the park’s parent company, and Soaring Eagle, which designed the ride—liable for $82 million in non-economic damages and $123 million in punitive damages. The verdict was announced Friday, September 19.
In a statement to PEOPLE, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park said: “Our hearts go out to the family of Wongel Estifanos and everyone affected by the tragic accident that happened on September 5, 2021.”
The park also highlighted the financial impact of the verdict: “While the jury allocated significant fault on the other defendant, Soaring Eagle, Inc., the size of the total jury verdict award puts the existence of Glenwood Caverns at serious risk. If the jury verdict remains as it is, hundreds of local jobs are in peril.”
Glenwood Caverns alleged that Soaring Eagle manufactured the Haunted Mine Drop ride with a defective restraint system, saying, “Soaring Eagle certified to Glenwood Caverns that the ride met all applicable standards, but that was not true. They failed to perform the required engineering and risk analyses that would have undoubtedly prevented this death. In addition, Soaring Eagle was aware of two prior ejections from this same restraint design—information they hid from the world.”
The park added that it worked independently with engineers to redesign the ride to prevent similar accidents in the future.
PEOPLE also spoke with Dan Caplis, an attorney representing Wongel’s family. In an interview with KUSA, Caplis noted that Soaring Eagle no longer exists: “That’s going to be litigated after this trial. So there’s not a clear answer to that at this point.”
On the significance of the $205 million jury award, Caplis told KUSA: “The whole purpose of the law on punitive damages is ‘Learn the lesson, make the world safer, make sure this never happens again. And that’s been the parents’ quest from day one.”
“Wongel’s parents are very grateful to the jury for speaking the truth and holding this corporation responsible,” Caplis added, according to KCNC.
