Alton Towers guests forced to climb down Oblivion on UK’s hottest day

As you are well aware, yesterday was incredibly hot in the UK – in fact, it was officially the hottest day on record in our country.

Not a good day to go outside, let alone a good day to find yourself trapped on top of a roller coaster at Alton Towers.

But that’s what happened to some unlucky people at the Staffordshire theme park, as they had to walk down a 65ft flight of stairs back to the ground level after becoming trapped.

The incident happened yesterday, July 19th, with customers stuck on Oblivion – a ride that suspends you in mid-air before a 180ft drop into an underground tunnel – after the ride stopped working.

One Twitter user was live on the scene as it happened, with Dean sharing his first-hand account of what went on at the theme park.

Dean said: “An Oblivion shuttle has stopped at the top, I’m sure the magical bottles of water will be straight out in this heat.”

And the water did make it to the trapped visitors, with Dean providing ongoing commentary as they made their way down from the ride.

He continued: “Evacuation procedure has started, the yellow fences are out on the break run.

“Preparations are underway to evacuate the riders from the shuttle at the top, clearly the ride cannot be re-started at this point in time!

“Guests are now being evacuated from the top, they have remained safe throughout the evacuation, with bottled water provided, and a harness to walk back down to the ground!”

Alton Towers quickly reassured everyone that everything was, in fact, running exactly as intended.

The spokesperson for the theme park said: “The ride performed exactly as it is designed to do.

“In line with our well-rehearsed procedures, guests were assisted from the ride and were immediately given water, food, hats and all left happy to continue on with their day at the park.

“At no point was guest safety compromised.”