Families were enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Norwalk Oyster Festival when a ride called the Zumur experienced a mechanical failure that caused it to stop in mid-air, injuring 18 people, mostly children, the Norwalk Police Department said. Norwalk police Lt. Paul Resnick said an 8-year-old boy was admitted to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The festival's organizer, the nonprofit Norwalk Seaport Association, said it directed the ride's operator, Stewart Amusement, to shut down the entire ride area until state inspectors completed a check. The festival temporarily shut down rides after the accident but reopened them Sunday evening after fire investigators and the ride company inspected them. Safety record 
 
 "Portable rides have a very good safety record," according to amusement park safety expert Ken Martin. Its rides are inspected by its own staff every day, by state and local inspectors weekly and by engineers and insurance inspectors each year, the company's website said. A dozen children were injured when an amusement ride at a Connecticut fair broke down on Sunday, sending the swinging riders careening into each when the ride came to a sudden halt, authorities said. It could have been us 
 
 For those who witnessed Sunday's accident at the Oyster Festival, it was heartbreaking. Resnick said children were being tended to by their parents on the ground when he arrived shortly after the accident.
– A dozen children were hospitalized yesterday after a swing ride malfunctioned at a festival in Connecticut, sending children crashing into each other and the center of the ride in front of their horrified parents. One adult was also injured as the ride at Norwalk's Oyster Festival lost power, the AP reports. Witnesses saw bleeding children with injured necks and legs and the most seriously injured child, an 8-year-old boy, is still in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. "It was just injured kids everywhere. The parents ripping out the gate just trying to get to their kids," a witness tells CNN. "It was just horrible." The owner of the ride, which spins swings attached to metal arms, says his company is cooperating with state investigators.