Graphic image: Injured Jack, 12, home after funfair ordeal

Jack Bennett, 12, almost lost his eyesight after falling on a spinning bowl-style ride while visiting Poulton Gala with friends at the weekend.

He was airlifted to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital with a fractured skull, displaced eye socket, and broken hand.

The youngster, in Year Seven at Baines, underwent an operation lasting several hours and now has a plastic device fitted to his head to keep his eye in place – something he will be forced to have for the rest of his life.

Mum Caroline, who wants the tagada-style ride banned, said: “He is as well as can be expected. I’m just following the routine from Alder Hey. They have sent home a plan of what needs to be done and I’m keeping up with that.”

Jack, who faces at least two weeks away from classes, is back at Alder Hey on Monday, the 41-year-old, of Heron’s Reach, said yesterday.

He will have twice-weekly appointments for the foreseeable future as he recovers from his injuries, which Caroline said happened when Jack was ‘thrown out his seat and his head trapped in the entrance gate to the ride’.

Sunday’s accident, which happened when Foster’s Funfair was visiting Cottam Hall playing fields off Blackpool Old Road, is not the first to have involved a tagada-style attraction, which sees riders sit in a spinning bowl and features hydraulic bouncing.

Last year, five teens were taken to hospital following an accident near the Scottish Airshow in Ayr.

“Punters on tagada-style rides – which have seats in a large spinning bowl – are not secured by seatbelts or restraints as it tilts and dips,” a national paper said.

The Health and Safety Executive was called in. It is also probing the incident in Poulton.