Tourist cracks skybridge glass floor with ‘baseball slide’

The visitor ignored the attraction’s ‘no running, jumping, or bouncing’ policy

Gatlinburg Skybridge (Gatlinburg Skybridge )

The glass floor of the US’s largest pedestrian suspension bridge has been cracked by a tourist.

The incident occurred on Monday 15 June, when a visitor attempted to do a “baseball-style slide” across the glass panels on the SkyBridge in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

According to the attraction, the guest ignored the bridge’s “no running, jumping, or bouncing” policy with unwelcome consequences.

“Upon impact, a metal object on the guest’s clothing chipped the glass, resulting in noticeable cracks in the protective top layer of one glass panel,” said Gatlinburg SkyLift Park in a statement, reports CNN.

The bridge had to be closed on Monday night while repairs were done, but reopened on Tuesday morning.

The glass panels form an integral part of the 680ft-long bridge in the Great Smokey Mountains, allowing visitors to look down to the valley floor 140ft below.

The park maintains that the damage done by the tourist was mainly aesthetic and that the structural integrity of the bridge remained unaffected.

The top layer of glass is designed to protect the other two layers of material beneath, said the statement.

No one was injured in the incident and no visitors were in danger, according to park officials.

It’s not the first glass-bottomed visitor attraction to crack under pressure.

The all-glass Skydeck at Chicago’s Willis Tower cracked into “thousands of pieces” in June 2019.

In a video shared on Facebook, visitors appeared nervous and scared, and immediately retreated from the glass area.

Chicago’s tallest skyscraper, which until 2009 was called the Sears Tower, said no one was ever in danger.

A similar incident in 2014 caused the closure of the entire Skydeck. Willis Tower officials said no one was hurt then either.