Colorado Jury Awards $205 Million After 6-Year-Old Falls 110 Feet from Glenwood Caverns Ride When Operators Ignored Safety Alarm

On September 5, 2021, a six-year-old girl boarded the Haunted Mine Drop at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The ride is a 110-foot vertical free-fall attraction. When the cycle before hers ended, the seatbelt buckle remained in its locked position from the prior rider. She sat down on top of it, unbuckled.

The two operators working that day had been on the job for less than two weeks. They failed to check her restraint before loading the car. A warning light activated, signaling a restraint fault. Rather than stopping to investigate, the operators reset the alarm and launched the ride. She was ejected and fell the full 110 feet to her death.

Her parents brought a wrongful death action against Glenwood Caverns Holdings LLC, the two operators, and Soaring Eagle Inc., the Utah-based company that designed and built the ride. Discovery revealed that Soaring Eagle had not disclosed at least two prior ejections linked to the same restraint system design, a fact the jury weighed heavily in assessing the manufacturer's liability.

Dan Caplis represented the family at trial in Garfield County District Court. The case turned on what the operators knew and ignored: training records, maintenance logs, and the alarm-override sequence documented that the warning system worked as designed and that the operators chose to bypass it. After nearly seven hours of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict on September 19, 2025.

The total award was $205 million: $82 million in non-economic damages, for which the park and Soaring Eagle were found jointly liable at a combined 98 percent fault, and $123 million in punitive damages assessed against Glenwood Caverns Holdings. CBS Colorado described the award as one of the largest wrongful death verdicts for a single plaintiff in Colorado history. Colorado caps non-economic and exemplary damages by statute, and the trial court entered final judgment in November 2025 reducing the total to roughly $116 to $120 million. Glenwood Caverns Holdings later filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2026, a move the family's counsel characterized as an attempt to avoid responsibility. Criminal charges were declined by the Ninth Judicial District Attorney in 2022.