10 Worst Amusement Park Accidents

Rideman, your reply posts in the article you linked to are better written and researched than the actual article itself, which is funny, and kind of sad.

Audioslaved said:
Did anyone else see the "See who got arrested" slideshow after the accident slide show? Talk about a slow day in news.

Poor Myron and Vickie... not only did they get caught doing the wild thing in a pool, they got their mug shots plastered on the internet

How on earth can an accident that caused ZERO fatalitiies and only one injury top an accident that caused 6 deaths! It just sickens me that someone would actually think that. I think this list should be renamed the top ten accidents that have affected Edward Markey...that atleast somewhat makes sense.

LostKause said:
Billy, that's hilarious, and it's even funnier that you posted it in this topic. lol

It's part serious, too! It's probably more of a 'real' accident than many of the so-called accidents reported by the media these days. "Riders were forced to scale the Texas Giant" = the ride shut down and the riders had to walk down the very safe, hefty metal stairs....

WTAE in Pittsburgh posted this as well. You may also notice that despite WLWT being affiliated with NBC and WTAE with ABC, they have the exact same (mostly useless) website.

Good catch. Different broadcast networks but both are Hearst Television stations.

In hindsight, I am amazed that a listing of the "10 worst amusement park accidents" does not include that one poor-taste photo taken on the Top Thrill Dragster exit platform and blasted all over the Internet...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

kpjb said:
The sale of Geauga Lake to Six Flags has gotta be up there.

Tell me about it. I STILL have nightmares about that one! :)

-Tina

Except that it never happened. Six Flags never bought Geauga Lake.

Geauga Lake was bought by Premier Parks *before* Premier Parks bought Six Flags. At the time it was actually a good thing for Geauga Lake; Premier actually did pretty well back then and seemed to be doing OK managing the parks. It was when they bought the Six Flags Over Texas contract that the whole thing started to go off the rails, and when they bought the whole company instead of walking away from SFOT, I think that's the moment it all started to fall apart.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Oh, you know what I mean.

Did you mean Cedar Flags? ;)

I sometimes wonder what the amusement park world would be like if Premier was still around. What if they had not bought the SF chain? What if the premier parks were still around?

What if Marty McFly had gone back to the 1950's and convinced his dad to beat up Biff Tannen?

I'd still be able to go to Jungle Habitat...

Come to think of it, there aren't ANY Cedar Fair incidents on that list. Coincidence, or gentlemen's agreement to not bring those up to Kings Islands target audience.

I'm a dreamer, Smith, and I'm proud to admit it. :)

Good point, Dave. Very interesting. Sometimes, however, a "journalist's" action to purposely not mention something is less a conspiracy than it is an unspoken favor.

RideMan said:
This list seems to be the 10 Worst Amusement Park Accidents That The Reporter Could Think Of Off The Top Of His Head.

There is some truly sloppy reporting going on these days...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I think anymore "research" by reporters is limited to what can be found on Google or YouTube. There's also a tendency to call whatever event is happening now "the greatest," "the worst," "the biggest," "the most," etc.
How many times since 2001 did you hear something referred to as the whatever of the century? Are they aware the century has almost 90 years left in it and that something might happen in that time?

I don't know if it's being self-centered or what, but there's an attitude among a lot of people that if they didn't experience it, it never happened. Some of these writers would be surprised to find out that amusement parks existed before they were 5 years old. Even worse, their grandmothers might have ridden roller coasters. Totally incomprehensible to many of them, I'm sure.

I was really surprised not to see the flaming Enterprise on there. There's not a lot that I'm terrified of in terms of theme parks and potential accidents, but that one is the stuff of nightmares for me. Maybe it wasn't well-known enough?

Or the time the guy stood up on the Beast and got his head cut off in the tunnel...

What about the "Night of Silence" at Holiday World in 2003? :(

The flaming Enterprise incident looked far worse than what it could have been. Once the ram was fully retracted the hydraulic pump was shut off and the fire went out. This kiind of incident isn't all that uncommon. I've heard of several incidents similar to this involving Trabants.