Church carnival ride pins teens upside down for more than hour

Yeah right Nate! I bet this was all just a ploy to get more people to pray and thank God fo health and safety. (PLEASE NOTE EXTREME SARCASM!)

If that is a "Rule of thumb", I ask you to cut off both my opposing digits!

lata,

jeremy (suffering from lack of a :rolleyes thingy)

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Besides, if we were really shutting down people we disagreed with, would Jeremy (2Hostyl) still be around? :) I think not. - Jeff 1/24/02

Nate...nice job with that one! I love it!

Oh, crap, I just remembered one of the churches near me is having their annuakl carnival in a week...should I trust them? LOL! Hell....usually their most intense ride is Pharoah's Fury or Super Sizzler. They usually get crappy companies. Hopefully this year will be different.

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-Kyle Brylczyk
KoRn - Untouchables, June 11th, 2002

I never understood the distrustful attitude toward churches or the stereotype that ministers are money-grubbing (i.e. Rev. Lovejoy from the Simpsons). What does a church possibly have to gain from getting more money? What could a church possibly do to make people not trust it? Why would a church lie?

It just doesn't make sense. Everything a church does is for the benefit of its members, guests, the community and God.

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

You can probably thank busted TV evangelists for that.

Regardless, no church operates its own rides, so it's pretty silly for it to enter into discussion here.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

I really like Jim Fisher's comment about this, as it demonstrates the gaping hole in the proposal to bring fixed rides under the jurisdiction of the CPSC....

Anyway, my understanding is that when the ride stalled, they tried to fire up the backup motor, and it stalled out, indicating that something had actually *jammed*. When they opened up the ride, they found pieces of snapped-off bolts.

If you understand how bolts work, then you know that if bolts are snapping in an assembly, it probably means the bolts were loose. Bolts are not designed to handle shear loads; they are designed to hold clamping loads (need shear strength? Use a pin.). One way or another, the bolts probably worked loose and ultimately sheared off in the assembly, jamming the mechanism. The question is, why did the bolts loosen? And why is this the first time it's happened in 4-1/2 seasons?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Rideman: Snapped bolts can also be caused by excess tightening putting to much preload on the bolt, or by substitution of the wrong type of bolt.

Andy Hodgson: The CPSC stopped regulating fixed rides, because the parks got an ammendment passed that exempted them. This was based on politics not on any history. Over the last 30 or so years that we have documentation for, rides a fixed amusement parks have always had very low rates of serious accidents. The CPSC really isn't equipped to regulate any rides.

man thats gotta suck... i was at Carowinds a few weeks ago and we almost got stuck upside down on frenzoid (a ship that hangs you upsidedown) that would have sucked

Jim: Excellent point. Kar Fasteners has a very informative book that explains everything you could possibly want to know about bolts. I have a copy here someplace; I just wish they had it available on-line. It puts some pretty important concepts about how bolts work into very easy to follow language. It also explains why, if you catch the garage man installing your lug nuts with a speed-gun, you really ought to demand a new set of lug bolts...

As for the CPSC thing: The basic problem...and this incident, like all ride incidents, demonstrates it...the CPSC doesn't inspect, monitor, investigate, or regulate ANYTHING until something goes wrong. So CPSC oversight wouldn't be about inspecting rides, it would be about investigating incidents. And there is some question within the industry as to whether the CPSC's investigators understand amusement rides well enough to even come close to finding out what really happened in an incident.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Wow Im glad this is getting some discussion considering this is my area Cinnaminson. Ive been going to that carnival all my life and its always been fine this is the first problem ever.

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Did anyone else laugh at the fireman's face in that photo? You would've thought he was the one hanging upside-down.

Kidding aside, that is not the way I would want to spend an hour. That ride is similar to G-Force, which I really like.