Days after a 10-year-old girl was tragically killed on a carnival ride, colleagues of her police sergeant father are collecting donations to assist the family with funeral expenses.

Hailey McMullen was somehow thrown from a spinning ride at the Deerfield Township Harvest Festival Saturday evening, and died from her injuries an hour later. State investigators are still trying to figure out what went wrong.

The small South Jersey township has rallied around the grieving McMullen family, and so has the police union in Salem, where her father, Chris McMullen, is a Salem City police sergeant.

The Salem County Police Officers Association set up an account to accept donations that will be given to the McMullen family to help cover the cost of the funeral and other arrangements, according to the family’s attorney and the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police.

“Our prayers are with the family,” Salem Police Chief John Pelura III said Wednesday.

Many of you may be aware that on October 12th, Hailey McMullen was tragically killed after being thrown from an... Posted by Chief John Pelura III on Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Hailey, a fifth grader at Deerfield Township Elementary School, is being remembered online as a “beloved student” and a “sweet angel.”

Memorials to her at the school and a local store feature bright pink balloons, some scrawled with messages, like “Fly high, Hailey.”

There are still few answers about what went wrong Saturday to cause Hailey to fall from the ride, which spins in one direction while 12 individual cars spin in the opposite direction. Passengers are restrained by lap bars.

Hailey was thrown from the ride at 6:18 p.m. Saturday, while the two-day festival was in full swing. She was airlifted to Cooper University Hospital in Camden and pronounced dead around 7:20 p.m., authorities said.

The incident is under investigation by the New Jersey State Police and the state’s Department of Community Affairs, which permitted and inspected the ride. However, neither agency has said whether any malfunction or other issue contributed to the accident.

Law enforcement officials at the scene of an incident at the Deerfield Township Harvest Festival, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019.Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Media

As the investigation continues, the McMullen family is asking anyone who witnessed the fall or has other relevant information or video footage to reach out to their lawyer or State Police. Attorney Milton Brown can be reached at 856-845-7898 and Detective Richard Hershey can be contacted at 856-451-0101.

“The parents of Hailey McMullen would like to thank you for the love, support and prayers given to them during this difficult time in their lives,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday.

The maker of the ride calls it the “Super Sizzler” but Skelly’s Amusements, which owned it and has operated all the rides at the fair for years, calls it “Xtreme.”

Rich Marchione, a manager at Skelly’s Amusements, said the ride has never had a major incident in its 27 years of operation.

He also said it was inspected and permitted, as were all the rides, this year. The company in Williamstown is cooperating with the investigation, and will be out of operation until the investigation is complete and it is reinspected, he said.

A balloon memorial at the nearby Dollar General for the 10-year-old who lost her life at the Deerfield Township Harvest Festival on Saturday, Monday, Oct. 14, 2019.Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Medi

While the festival reopened Sunday for its final day, the rides did not operate. Skelly’s Amusements said in a statement that day that they didn’t “have it in our heart” to run the rides after the tragedy.

Anyone wishing to donate to the funeral expense fund can make checks payable to SPOA or Salem Police Officers Association and write “Hailey McMullen” in the memo line. Checks may be mailed to the SPOA at P.O. Box 62, Salem, NJ 08079.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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