Cedar Point guest hit by Top Thrill Dragster part while in queue

eightdotthree said:

Just to keep it in the same park... Steel Vengeance doesn't allow for anything to be carried on anymore.

I'd still take it if it meant the end of the "it's drizzling in Huron so we are going to close 80% of the coasters and take the rest to single train ops" rule at CP.

No loose articles means faster dispatch times, win win.

Top Thrill Dragster is down for the season

Also, here's an interesting take on the woman making the social media rounds

https://www.midlevel.wtf/obnoxious-fnp-tells-ems-that-she-has-a-med...ith-scene/

Wow. That really sucks. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

If the part did indeed come from the train, then that is totally unacceptable.

Just to keep the crossover consistent, I posted this over at P-Buzz as well.

We don't know that the object has not been found. We only know (per the bodycam video) that in that moment of time the object had not yet been found, aside from a bolt that probably held the object on the ride.

However, there is this, which was posted in the comment section of the article from cleveland.com that Brett referred to above:

Take it with a grain of salt, but it does match some of the eye-witness descriptions of the object (L-shaped, rusty, heavy). It's also not inconceivable that some d-bag of a guest would pick up the object in the chaos and decide to keep it.

Anyone here know Kip?

Not to be just down right gross but I can't help but notice the lack of blood or other bodily "stuff" of any sort on the metal object in the picture. It just seems awfully clean for something that supposedly just whacked someone in the head hard enough for lots of blood and possibly visible brain matter. That might not mean anything but it sticks out to me as odd.

Have you ever suffered a cut to the head?
A very small wound will seem to just gush with blood. But that blood flow isn’t directly caused by the thing that broke the skin; it’s caused by the skin being broken. Well, that’s not a good way to put it, but the point is this—
The head has a lot of really tiny blood supplies, which can deliver a lot of bleeding but it can take a few seconds before anything notable comes out.
Which could explain the total lack of organic matter on a chunk of metal that just beaned someone who is now w bleeding.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

I guess I'll repeat what I said on PB too regarding the speculation about the metal thing...

The brake fins on the track are flat pieces of copper that are about a meter long, maybe around a foot tall. That thing in that photo that no one can prove has anything to do with the accident is not that.

It's also not something that I can find in any of the photos I have of the trains, even in those that are stripped down from maintenance tours. If it were something from the bottom, it would have to get around a bunch of wheels and the fiberglass shell.

Did anyone ever check to see if it's something that came off of an Iron Dragon train?

I did find some of my high-res photos I had of the Iron Dragon train, but was unable to see anything that matched the part shown on the chassis.

There is an "L" type bracket that is used at the very top of the top hat I have seen in photos I had as well holding proxy sensors on dragster, but the bolt pattern also doesn't match that particular one shown in the photo, at least. I think the closest thing I have found still so far is the bracket holding the stationary brake fins (the moving pneumatic ones are different with larger spacing on the bolt pattern, it appears). The lack of paint is suspect though, but who knows if the thing hits the concrete or whatever else going 100+ mph, that would be a very quick sanding job. Or perhaps the trains were hitting this particular piece for a while rubbing the paint away before critical failure. You'd think they would hear such a thing though.

Also can't find anything on the winter-chill out type photos I had of the trains broken down and all that. Will be interesting if we ever find out exactly what it was.

The fact that the part in the photo only has bolt holes on one side of it makes me think it's used to keep a door from opening too far. Ever seen things like this mounted on the ground?

I don't have much faith in the authenticity of the photo.

Edit: Looking at it a little closer, any chance this is part of a lower wheel guide from Iron Dragon? Possibly from the 2nd lift? You can see a pattern of wear across the top of what I would imagine is the vertical section of the part.

Yeah the crisp very picturesque shadows. The FP bracelet. The absurdity of the idea that some one would find and walk off with the piece in the moment only after taking a picture but then post it on a news story comment. Smells like an internet troll job.

BrettV said:

Also, here's an interesting take on the woman making the social media rounds

https://www.midlevel.wtf/obnoxious-fnp-tells-ems-that-she-has-a-med...ith-scene/

This NPs heart was in the right place and thankfully she was right there to help the women in the immediate aftermath.

Bur she comes off very obnoxious.

To me, it seems virtually impossible for a part to fly from Iron Dragon to the Dragster queue, as the speed of the Iron Dragon train doesn't seem like it would be enough to propel a large metal object that far to me.

I think it has to be a Dragster part.

@OhioStater, did you see the comment on Cleveland.com, or did someone else report it was from there?

I'm asking because I had thought that Cleveland.com turned off commenting some time ago.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/02/open-commenting-at-cleveland...s-why.html

As for the part - I can't see the picture anymore, but I recall it had two holes for bolts. It seems *less* likely (though not impossible) that both would fail resulting in the part coming loose.

The bracket in that photo above has countersunk holes in it. From my experience that seems to make it unlikely to have come from a coaster train where it would have probably been attached with bolts, washers, and nuts.

^^ I heard it was there, and then saw it in the comments. Not from cleveland.com itself, but from the facebook post cleveland.com made here.

It's still there. It appears that the original poster took it down, but someone else reposted it.

Could be completely made up. Could be something. When I look at the photo, I see people lined up (the shadows) looking into Dragster's queue, with this being taken outside the queue after the crowd rushed out.

I guess I have less faith in humanity in that it would not surprise me at all that someone would take it home, if said object was involved in some way.

The_Orient_of_Express said:

This NPs heart was in the right place and thankfully she was right there to help the women in the immediate aftermath.

Knowing your own limitations and when you've become a liability instead of an asset is a basic human skill (one becoming less widely practiced in the age of the internet expert). If you're trying to do something you're not qualified to do and you're preventing actually qualified people from doing it, then your ego is running the show and your heart is NOT in the right place. If someone's safety is at risk, you're committing malpractice and are criminally liable.

I don’t recognize the object we’re all talking about. I wonder if it’s related to the shade structures and/or the vending machines. It does kind of look like a doorstop or a guide for a sliding gate.

We have no evidence that the object shown was, or was not, involved in any way in the incident.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'm wondering if that L shaped bracket is something mounted under the train that rides on the tires that advance the train from spot to spot for loading and unloading.

If it was something that came from Iron Dragon, they would know by now and that would be shut down as well.