Anything can happen at the Jersey Shore…
Just ask Georgia Reed, 14, and Kiley Holman, 13, a couple of Pennsylvania teenagers who a close encounter with a seagull while on a ride at Morey’s Piers in Wildwood, New Jersey.
Morey’s Piers & Beachfront Water Parks, the premier outdoor sporting venue in South Jersey, has returned all of its beach sporting events that were canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meeting a seagull is not on the list of attractions but a once-in-a-lifetime chance struck true for Kiley, who says this was kind of a dream come true.
She loves animals and says she’s always wanted to catch a seagull.
Georgia was celebrating her 14th birthday when the girls decided to try out the amusement park’s SpringShot ride, which propels seated riders into the air at speeds over 75 mph.
Georgia wanted to ride the SpringShot, according to Kiley, who said, "I’ve done the SpringShot previously so I wasn’t that nervous."
Even an experienced amusement park daredevil is unprepared to meet a flying seagull!
Video shows the two teenagers rocketing skyward into the air when Kiley came face-to-face with a seagull in midflight.
"When I got shot up, then I saw it. It was going the opposite way and then it came back and hit me right in the face," Kiley said. "It felt really light and it only left like the tiniest scratch."
Kiley was able to remove the bird and it appeared to fly away uninjured if not unsurprised.
This collision happened right next to Georgia, who was oblivious in the midst of her own terrifying trajectory, straight up at 75 mph.
"I was trying to tell her," Kiley said.
In the video, Kiley can be heard yelling, "A bird flew on my face! A bird flew on my face! Oh my God!"
But Georgia couldn’t hear it. She was focused on surviving the ride.
"She told me to stop talking because she thought she was going to throw up," Kiley said.
Back on Earth, Georgia’s mother Alena Reed also was also unaware what was happening.
"We did not know what happened until they got off. We did see feathers falling from ride, but at first, I assumed they were tickets," Alena told Action News.
The feathery fiasco happened in the first few seconds of the ride, meaning the girls flipped and spun in the air for almost a full minute afterwards.
Before they were even back on the ground, Kiley knew this story was too tall of a bird tale to be believed without evidence.
"I can’t wait to see this video," Kiley said while still on the ride.
Neither could the internet, as the video has racked up hundreds of thousands of views online.
"I saw it on the internet, people trying to catch them and, I don’t know, I just thought it would be cool," Kiley said.
The girls couldn’t stop laughing after the ride.
Kiley is described as an ‘animal person.’
Her family has three dogs, two cats and a horse. She says the best part is the bird flew away unharmed.
Kiley said despite the close call, she expects to ride the SpringShot again.
"Yeah," .
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