Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

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A Sun­day af­ter­noon fam­i­ly out­ing at Movi­eTowne’s Carousel Park in Mu­cu­rapo al­most end­ed in dis­as­ter, af­ter four-year-old Khu­ni Mc Shine clung to the mov­ing canopy of the Fer­ris wheel and was lift­ed sev­er­al feet in­to the air.

How­ev­er, the boy was even­tu­al­ly res­cued by Ak­il De Vi­gnes, a 35-year-old fa­ther of two and elec­tri­cian from Diego Mar­tin, whose quick, fear­less re­sponse turned what could have been a tragedy in­to a mo­ment of hope.

“When I saw him up there, out­side the buck­et, I didn’t think, I just moved,” De Vi­gnes told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

“I kept shout­ing to him, ‘Hold on, I am com­ing for you!’ I had no har­ness, no plan. Just a feel­ing that I had to get that child down.”

The child’s moth­er, Melis­sa Tay­lor, re­count­ed the ter­ri­fy­ing mo­ment her son slipped away from her.

“We were hav­ing a nice day. I had tak­en him to play games, and then we were go­ing on some rides,” she said. “He was ex­cit­ed and told me, ‘Mom­my, I want to go on this one.’ Be­fore I could re­act, he ran ahead and the ride start­ed to move.”

Tay­lor said she had pur­chased a tick­et pack­age for mul­ti­ple rides and was prepar­ing to board with Khu­ni and an­oth­er child when he sud­den­ly bolt­ed to­wards the Fer­ris wheel.

“By the time I looked up, he was al­ready off the ground. He had grabbed on­to the canopy and was go­ing up. Peo­ple were scream­ing. I couldn’t be­lieve what I was see­ing.”

Park at­ten­dants rushed to ac­ti­vate the emer­gency stop and ini­tial­ly at­tempt­ed to pull the child down, but Khu­ni wouldn’t re­lease his grip.

De Vi­gnes, who had just come off the same ride with his daugh­ters, saw the com­mo­tion, hand­ed his chil­dren to a by­stander and be­gan climb­ing the struc­ture.

“I didn’t feel fear at that point,” he said.

“My body just moved. I knew if I took too long, he could fall. That was my on­ly thought.”

With no climb­ing gear and us­ing on­ly the struc­tur­al beams of the Fer­ris wheel, De Vi­gnes pulled him­self up to where the child was hold­ing on. He braced him­self, grabbed Khu­ni, opened a near­by buck­et door, and pulled him to safe­ty be­fore the ride was slow­ly low­ered to the ground.

Cell­phone footage of the in­ci­dent showed Khu­ni cling­ing tight­ly to the canopy frame, sev­er­al feet in the air, as shocked on­look­ers screamed for help.

“When we land­ed, he (Khu­ni) looked at me and said, ‘I was wait­ing on you.’ That broke me. I’ll nev­er for­get that mo­ment,” De Vi­gnes re­called.

Tay­lor was re­unit­ed with her son just mo­ments lat­er, and both were over­whelmed with emo­tion.

“I thank God for that man,” she said tear­ful­ly yes­ter­day.

“He didn’t just save my son, he saved me too. I don’t know what would’ve hap­pened if he didn’t act.”

Movi­eTowne has con­firmed the in­ci­dent and com­mend­ed De Vi­gnes for his brav­ery.

“We are sin­cere­ly thank­ful that Mr De Vi­gnes was present and act­ed so quick­ly. We are al­so ex­treme­ly re­lieved that the child was un­harmed,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment.

Movi­eTowne said all safe­ty pro­to­cols were fol­lowed but stressed that in­ci­dents in­volv­ing young chil­dren can es­ca­late in sec­onds.

With the Ju­ly\Au­gust school va­ca­tion in full swing, the com­pa­ny is urg­ing par­ents and guardians to re­main vig­i­lant around rides and at­trac­tions. It added that it is re­view­ing the in­ci­dent to iden­ti­fy any im­prove­ments in safe­ty that can be made.

Since the in­ci­dent, De Vi­gnes has re­ceived na­tion­al at­ten­tion, with calls mount­ing on so­cial me­dia for him to be for­mal­ly recog­nised with a na­tion­al award for brav­ery.

“I didn’t do it for praise,” De Vi­gnes said.

“But I’m grate­ful that the coun­try sees the val­ue in do­ing good. We need more of that.”

While he did not act for re­ward, De Vi­gnes said, “If I’m con­sid­ered for a na­tion­al award, I’d be hum­bled. But the re­al re­ward is that Khu­ni is alive and home with his moth­er. That’s enough for me.”