Zombie actor crushed by paintballers' bus

The attraction featured actors dressed as zombies for the paintballers to 'hunt'. File photo / Thinkstock

A bus carrying paintball players has struck and killed a man inside a zombie attraction at a corn maze in northern Idaho.

Jeremy T. McSpadden Jr, 18, of Spokane Valley, Washington state, was a role player in the Zombie Slayer Paintball Bus attraction at the Incredible Corn Maze in Hauser on Friday night, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office says.

Dressed as a zombie, he emerged from his hiding place and ran toward the modified school bus but tripped and fell in front of the rear passenger-side tyres, witnesses say.

He was run over and apparently killed instantly.

Because of the uneven terrain of the maze, the bus frequently rocks and no one on board immediately noticed what had happened, investigators said on Saturday.

"It was not until the bus had travelled away from the victim's location and the role players began to reset for the next bus to come along that anyone realised something was wrong," the sheriff's office said in a news release.

For $15, customers ride the bus, which has paintball guns mounted outside the windows, and shoot at the zombies as the vehicle drives through the maze.

Neither speed nor alcohol was a factor, Sergeant Ward Crawford said.

"The focus of the attraction is the bus creeps forward so the customers have plenty of opportunity to blast away at the zombies," Crawford said.

"This looks like it was just a horrific confluence of events."

-AAP