Child walking on monorail beam at Hersheypark

Jeff:

Speaking from experience, you do the best you can, and sometimes **** happens anyway.

Yeah, my first kneejerk thought was "where were the parents?", but my wife and 19 year old son and I were discussing this incident last night and I brought up a scare we had with him at Kings Dominion's water park when he was a toddler. We were watching him in one of the smaller play areas with a small climbing structure and slides. The water was almost up to my knees right around the structure, and it was pretty crowded with lots of other parents and kids of various ages. I took my eyes off of him for less than 5 seconds; when I turned back he was gone. Spent a good 20 seconds (which seemed like a half hour) looking for him until he just appeared, still in the same general area, perfectly fine and having a blast. Scary ****, but it's a reminder that while it's easy to just blame the parents, it isn't always so black and white.

If these parents lost sight of their kid for a couple seconds, it's likely they wouldn't even think to check the entrance ramp of a nearby closed ride until...well, until he was spotted walking the track.

wahoo skipper:
One death. Full and thorough response.

And I'm not really arguing that Hershey won't do the same. Just that I don't think it's necessary...except because our litigious society makes it necessary. It's always someone else's fault. And to my earlier point about blaming the parents, if I was this kid's dad I would absolutely be the one to blame. Would I sue if my kid fell to his death because I failed to keep him from going somewhere he shouldn't have been? I'm honestly not sure. I can say with almost complete certainly that I would not have sued KD had my kid drowned in foot-and-a-half deep water within 10 feet of where I was standing.

I'm with you Vater. I don't think McDonald's should have to put "Caution, Contents May be Hot" on their coffee cups and I don't think a candy bar packaging should have to say, "remove wrapper before eating"...but here we are.

And Jeff, I am sorry for my insensitivity. My wife and I left our child in a car once for about 10 minutes because both of us thought the other had grabbed her out of a car seat before walking into a Thanksgiving dinner. We felt awful, of course, and it was definitely a **** happens moment...but had something serious happened to her I'm sure we would have been charged with something.

Whether or not the park takes precautions to prevent this from happening again in the future, I do wonder how far you go with those precautions. The same situation could happen on just about every roller coaster, and think of attractions that have fall hazards on platforms too. How far do you go beyond a closed queue/station platform with chains and queue gates?

wahoo skipper:

it is now a known risk,

It was always a known risk. But the risk was low until recently. Probably still is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Cedar Point not change a thing after the Raptor death? The argument was that the measures in place were good enough, that the offender took extraordinary measures.

Could this logic be used for HP as well? If the child was determined enough, and while I cannot speak for this child, I know that a curious child will find a way around just about any barrier should they want in bad enough.

Tommytheduck:

I know that a curious child will find a way around just about any barrier should they want in bad enough.

That is why I propose armed guards on turrets as a solution...

...

...for the safety of the children.

Statistically, the rate of incidents like this would reach zero.

Gonchifying the entrances makes sense. The armed guards will of course be required to go seat belt free on their ride to work.

Most measures "for the children" these days have little to do with the well-being of children.

wahoo skipper:

I don't think McDonald's should have to put "Caution, Contents May be Hot" on their coffee cups

you should really stop right there. This is a trope that should have died a long time ago, along with "welfare queen".

Since I don't think I have ever successfully posted an html link in Coasterbuzz, I'm reduced to copy/paste:

"Stella Liebeck was in a parked car with her grandson when she attempted to add cream and sugar to her coffee. The coffee, placed between her knees due to the lack of a cup holder, spilled, causing third-degree burns on her legs and groin". The coffee was estimated to be at 190 degrees, much hotter than coffee should be served, and is/was unsafe. McDonald's added the damn language after the fact, but the issue at first was becuase they were serving damn near boiling water. Something no consumer should have a reason to suspect.

As for the monorail beam, no one has identified how the kid jumped onto the beam. The brooklyn bridge deterrant is useless here, because it would appear that he got onto the beam at a cross angle, like jumping from station platform onto the beam.

Yeah, we all know the story. It’s still dumb that companies have to put idiot warnings on their products.

CreditWh0re:

The brooklyn bridge deterrant is useless here

I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting. I was proposing barriers at the ends of the station, where the rail enters and leaves the station, that would prevent anyone from walking on the rail outside. They could walk back and forth inside the station as much as they like, presumably with minimal risk.

Not a good month for Hersheypark it seems.

https://6abc.com/post/guest-disturbance-leads-roller-coaster-stoppage-hersheypark/17777766/

This ought to be another fun puzzle to figure out.

Why evacute the train if the issue is on the platform. Stop the train on the hill and let it sit until disturbance is cleared. Unless they were thinking it was going to take a while for the disturbance to clear.

Certainly and odd situation. If there was issue on the unload platform and that train couldn't move, I can see why there would be a temporary stop on the lift since the unload is the next block for the lift train. The position that high up seems to indicate that. I can't think of many situations though that would require not moving people away from the unload station to resume operations though. Any fight or altercation I'd hope security moves people into custody quickly, and any medical issues should be swift to get them out of there.

Even if it takes 30 minutes to clear and you know the ride is mechanically sound, it seems better to wait and promise guest a Fast Track wristband for the day than have a risky walkdown, SOP be damned. That is one of the handful of rides I would not want a walkdown given the narrow tread and lack of stairs. It must have been a crazy hours long situation that needed resolved.

They said it wasn't an issue with the coaster mechanically.

Clicked on that website and immediately got a pop-up claiming my IP address had been hacked, etc. Click at your own risk.

It's a link from the Philadelphia ABC affiliate...And worked fine at my place of work. Maybe they had an advert that got flagged for you.

I took out the text I put in the add link box maybe that was the issue?

Don't know - it was probably an ad I rolled over or something. But one of those pop-ups that takes over your computer.

Or maybe it was coincidence. Anyway, thanks for trying to fix it.

Working in IT as long as I have, I am used to dealing with links/emails that just don't look right.

About McDonald's, no restaurant should be serving boiling water in a disposable cup to their customers. You can't even drink it like that. They kept it that hot so it would stay fresh-tasting longer. That was the entire point of the lawsuit. Because they lost the suit, McDonald's now serves their coffee at a lower temperature. Which is the way it should have been in the first place.

That's old news, of course, but it floors me that there are still people who say the lawsuit was frivolous, even when they know the info I just mentioned.

LostKause:

Because they lost the suit, McDonald's now serves their coffee at a lower temperature.

Thank God!

Nothing to see here, folks. We can all rest easy. The coffee is lukewarm now.