It’s one thing — albeit a potentially terrifying thing — to be stuck on a roller coaster at any height for any length of time in even the best of weather. But when you’re strapped in at 60 feet during a chilly downpour for more than an hour, well that just sounds like the suckiest of awfully bad experiences.

Rescue workers were called in to help 16 people stuck on Busch Gardens’ newest coaster, the Cheetah Hunt ride, and it wasn’t an easy task.

“They were at an angle probably 30 degrees, so just unbuckling them caused anxiety for both the passengers and our people, but (we) were able to put a nice harness on them, get them into the buckets, and lower them down to the ground,” the Tampa Fire special operations chief told USA Today (warning: link has auto-play video).

The conditions didn’t make it any easier, as heavy rains poured down on the heads of what we can only imagine must’ve been some pretty miserable people.

No one was hurt during the ordeal, despite enduring the cold, soaking rain for more than an hour.

“They walked away under their own power and they are at a hospitality place within Busch Gardens,” said a Tampa Fire Rescue information officer last night.

Busch Gardens has engineers working now to figure out what caused the ride to malfunction, and it’ll stay closed until the investigation is through.

You can follow MBQ on Twitter if you don’t mind Tweets about cheese often: @marybethquirk

6 rescued from stuck roller coaster in Florida [USA Today]

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