With the summer festival and fair season barely underway, a young worker in Michigan suffered an injury so serious on Saturday that he had to have a leg amputated. News sources say the 22-year-old was critically injured at the Curwood Festival in Owosso, a small community 94 miles northwest of Detroit.

The employee of the Skerbeck Family Carnival employee was transported to Hurley Medical Center in Flint, where he is listed in critical condition.

The injured man was reportedly performing routine maintenance work on a Fire Ball ride when the incident occurred. The Fire Ball is a loop nearly 59 feet tall which transports riders in two-person seats. The Fire Ball has safety features intended to protect passengers, such as an emergency power cut-off button, a “dead-man's” operator chair that detects the absence of an operator and an anti-air double-lock harnesses with secondary precaution belt that activates when air is released.

In a statement, Skerbeck Family Carnival thanked its employees, first responders of Owosso and the Curwood Festival “for their prompt response” to the emergency.