Someone ‘tried to catch her.’ Iowa toddler fatally thrown from carnival ride in Mexico

A night at a carnival for an Iowa family vacationing in Mexico ended tragically when their 3-year-old daughter was thrown from a ride and landed 30 feet below on the pavement.

Family members say someone tried to catch her, but couldn’t.

Jenessy “Sophia” Villalpando was taken to a local hospital but died on July 23, El Mercurio, a local newspaper, reported.

Video of the scene shows emergency personnel running down the midway at the Virgin of Santa Clara fair in Penjamo, located in central Mexico, while carnival-goers with worried faces stand back and watch.

“Our family is in complete shock, confused, and heartbroken.” Sophia’s aunt, Marlene Cuauhtenango Villalpando, wrote on a GoFundMe page to raise money to bring her niece home to Iowa.

“Sophia was so full of life, she was the family sunshine, the one who could make us all forget about our problems with her cheerful personality.”

Villalpando set a fundraising goal of $1 because “no amount of money can fix our heartache. No amount of money can bring Sophia back to us.”

She wrote that Sophia had gone to Mexico with her mother, grandfather and great-grandmother for vacation. They were just a few days away from heading home to Iowa when they went to the carnival. in Penjamo in central Mexico.

According to El Mercurio, Sophia was with her mom on a ride called the Twister when she was somehow thrown from her seat.

“We don’t know exactly what went wrong. We were told my niece wasn’t buckled right. She was ejected/slipped from her seat,” Villalpando told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

On the GoFundMe page, Villalpando wrote that “someone in the public saw and tried to catch her but unfortunately wasn’t able to. Sophia suffered major trauma to the head and her brain was swollen.

“Doctors intubated her and put her in a coma to help her brain rest. Doctors were waiting for MRI results when she passed away ...”

El Mercurio reported that authorities found “several anomalies” when they investigated the accident.

For one thing, the ride operator did not have permission to operate in the town of Santa Ana, the newspaper reported, and the ride was not properly supervised. The accident is still under investigation, according to El Mercurio.

Sophia’s grandfather, Ruben Villalpando, owns El Sol Mexican Restaurant in Waverly, Iowa and El Senor Tequila Nightclub in Waterloo, according to the Courier..

Sophia’s funeral and burial were scheduled for Tuesday.