The 11-year-old girl whose scalp got ripped off when her long red hair became tangled in a carnival ride at the Cinco de Mayo Festival in Omaha on May 7, may be maimed for life—and could possibly lose her eyesight permanently, her father said.
“She was tortured,” Timothy Gilreath, the father of 11-year-old Elizabeth Gilreath, said in a press conference at Nebraska Medicine where his daughter is being treated.
He said the ride, King’s Crown, went on for five to ten minutes as it ripped and pulled his daughter around.
“They don’t even know if the muscles will work and my daughter will be able to see again. That is our baby,” the devastated father said.
“No mother should have to go threw what im going threw,” Elizabeth mother, Virginia Cooksey, said in a Facebook post on May 8.
Elizabeth’s family created a GoFundMe page asking for $50,000 in donations for their daughter’s recovery; Her family said she has already undergone three surgeries from the horrific accident.
As of Tuesday, they have raised roughly $12,000.
“(At) this point we are not sure if her scalp will die or stay alive,” the page says.
“If it does die Lulu will not be able to grow her own hair.”
“I have very long hair and would like to make her a wig by cutting my haiir off could some one mesaage me a address i can send it to?” a commentator asked on the fundraising page.
“I would like to have a wig made for her. If its okay,” asked another commentator.
Thomas D. Thomas Shows, the company that runs the carnival, claimed that they are investigating the accident, according to WOWT.
