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.