Four Years Later

Four years after a carnival ride’s corroded steel arm snapped and flung a high school student to his death at the Ohio State Fair, the state is tightening its oversight of amusement rides. Inspectors are conducting more mandatory checks for rust and metal fatigue and increasingly flagging rides for repairs…during the first year of enforcement, under the new regulations. Some carnival operators say inspectors are overreaching and shutting rides over issues that aren’t immediate safety concerns. A few have pulled out of Ohio’s festival circuit because of it. Tyler Jarrell, an 18-year-old Marine enlistee, died in 2017.