The heartbroken dad of the teen hurled to her death from a ride at Coney Island yesterday got a tattoo in memory of his “beautiful little girl.”
“It’s my way of always remembering her – I can just look at it and think of her,” sobbed Richard Caban after he was tattooed with a small heart on his right arm.
Next to the heart are the gut-wrenching words: “R.I.P. Nadine – Love, Daddy.”
Nadine Caban, 17 – the mother of an infant son – suffered massive internal injuries and bled to death after she was ejected from the Super Himalaya ride near the Astroland amusement park late Friday.
The tragedy occurred when a metal coupling that fastens the speedy ride’s cars together snapped and caused car No. 19 to flip over, hurling Nadine to the ground.
“I can’t stop crying. She was my life – I just can’t believe that she is gone,” Caban told The Post last night.
“My heart hurts so much. She was my baby. We are so angry about this, and we have hired a lawyer.”
Nadine will be waked tomorrow and Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Ponce Funeral Home, 2715 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, with a funeral to be held Thursday.
Mayor Giuliani yesterday promised swift answers as to why the coupling – which is regularly inspected – snapped.
“It is being taken very seriously. I’m sure in the next few days [the Buildings Department] will come up with a working hypothesis” as to why it happened, the mayor said.
Buildings Department spokesman Paul Wein said investigators were working through the weekend to find out what happened.
“We want an answer on this. The hook that fastened bars that connected cars snapped,” Wein said.
“We know what happened, which is that the hook snapped. Now we have to determine why it happened.”
He said the Buildings Department was inspecting other rides owned by Nathan Kaufman, who operates the Himalaya, and any similar rides. Asked about concerns over aging rides, Wein admitted that there are “rides throughout the city that are many, many years old.
“We inspect them all before we give them a clean bill of health.”