On what should have been a regular family day at Hersheypark, a child somehow breached a barricaded and chained monorail track and started walking along it. The footage of the incident resembles the handheld phone camera footage of a mass hypnosis event that kicks off. And it feels like a M. Night Shyamalan movie.
The whole thing could’ve ended in disaster if not for John Sansone, a veterinarian, father of three, and the little boy’s savior. Sansone spoke with ABC News about the rescue.
Sampson heard panicked screams of, “There’s a kid up there!”—the exact kind of direct and snappy expository dialogue people need to shout in emergencies. That’s just good screenwriting. Sure enough, there was. Alone, barefoot for some reason, and high above the park’s grounds. The monorail wasn’t running, thankfully.
Guy Who Rescued Kid From Hersheypark Monorail Track Describes His Dad Mode Fugue State
Sampson went into one of those Dad Mode fugue states that you see in viral videos where a baby is about to fall. A dad shreds the fabric of space and time to precisely set his hand beneath the baby’s face nanoseconds before it smashes against the ground. He sprinted to a nearby concession stand, parkour’d up a fence, leapt onto a roof, and made his way to the monorail.
All this despite a fear of heights. “It didn’t bother me up there,” he told ABC, “because I was just concentrating on one thing.”
When he reached the boy, he simply opened his arms. The kid climbed in without hesitation. “I was mumbling, ‘I got you. You’re okay,’” Sampson recalled. Luckily, another parkgoer was there to help them both descend.
Park staff confirmed the boy was unharmed and reunited with his family. Hersheypark issued a thank-you statement that they also used as an opportunity to use as a press release, assuring customers that safety is their number one concern and blah blah blah.
Look, I find it difficult to blame the park in this specific instance. You can only do so much against a little boy who is determined to do something stupid.
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