NYE Revelers Stuck on Ride for 8 Hours

For eight revelers in France, the first hours of 2019 are likely to be the worst ones they'll have all year. The three adults and five teenagers started the year stuck 170 feet above the ground on a broken fairground ride in the western city of Rennes, and some of them didn't make it down for more than eight hours, the AP reports. A part on the BomberMaxxx pendulum ride broke at around 8:30pm on New Year's Eve, leaving the group stranded so high up that firefighters couldn't reach them with their ladders, reports the BBC reports. A rescue helicopter was called in to assist and the last person was winched to safety at 6am. The youngest person stranded was 13 years old.

Video of the rescue was posted online. People rescued from the ride said it was a long, cold, and frightening experience. "We saw sparks, heard a big metal noise, and feared the worst," one woman tells AFP. "Next year, I’m staying at home with my champagne and biscuits," says Nicholas, a 47-year-old man. The ride's owner described the problem as a "technical incident that's never happened before" and said riders were never in any real danger. In the early hours of the morning, a fight broke out between fairground workers and families of the people stranded. (It was also a less than ideal New Year's Eve for a group of tequila thieves in Florida.)