An article saying 17 people were killed and 33 were injured at the “Bluegrass Boardwalk” in Kentucky is fake.
The bogus report was posted on Empire News, a so-called “satirical” website.
It had thousands of “likes” and shares on Facebook.
It reads: “Seventeen people, including six children, were tragically killed, and thirty-three others were injured when a wooden roller coaster at the new amusement park, Bluegrass Boardwalk, completely collapsed Sunday afternoon. The roller coaster, named Noah’s Ark, had just entered its first loop when the wooden structure began to collapse. ‘It was horrific, it just crumbled like a stack of tooth picks, those poor people, I will have nightmares about this the rest of my life, it could have been us,’ said 33-year old Jessica Waterbury of Louisville, who was waiting in line for the next ride on the coaster.”
However, according to a disclaimer, Empire News doesn’t publish real stories and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
It reads: “Empire News is a satirical and entertainment website. We only use invented names in all our stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.”
Some people apparently believed the roller coaster story, however.
“How completely pathetic! I’m shocked at the flippant attitude by management of this incident because of their faulty, unsafe and obviously poorly constructed infrastructure! How can season passes and a one day park closure compensate for these tragic deaths! Anyway, as the saying goes, ‘cheap thing no good. Good thing no cheap,’” one person wrote on Facebook.
