Deaths at Parks
-Matt
Still, if you don't try to stand-up or defeat ride restraints and you don't do stupid things like try to climb over fences, you're pretty safe in an amusement park...
Provided you don't have a ticking time bomb in your brain, and what are you going to do about that?
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Out of the coasters i've ridden here is wat i rank them overall:(ive been to canobie lake and SFNE)
1. S:RoS 2. Yankee Cannonball 3. Riverside Cyclone 4. Canobie Corkscrew 5. Thunderbolt 6. Galaxy 7. Mind Eraser 8. Dragon coaster 9. poison ivy's tangled
Actually I know of a few chains... Disney in particular... where patrons are not pronounced dead until off property.
Hence the park can say no death has ever occurred at the park.
It's a true, documented fact....
Shaggy
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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.
OH Good God, nobody ever died at SFGAm, I worked there for 4 years and lived there for 27 years. No guest died there. Some employees got hit by a truck in the work area, the Demon, and the Edge are the big ones.
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????
The guy on Shockwave at PKD, by all accounts, was trying to get out of the restraints...(possible/probable suicide).
The river raft ride at some (?) TX park overturned, drowning several people if I recall correctly.
And the one I can think of offhand that hasn't been mentioned, Colossus' infamous fatality where the woman fell out of the back seat...
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Florida needs an Intamin and/or CCI soon...PLEASE!
Son of Drop Zone - PKI CoasterCamp I Champions!!!
I was watching the dolphin show on my break (I worked kiddie rides; it was 1979 or 1980), when the emcee had two young kids come by the edge of the pool to throw fish to the dolphins. As a joke, he said someting like he was going to throw a quarter in the water and the first kid to jump in and retrieve it could keep it. He thought he had a grip on the kids, but one squirmed away and jumped in. The kid was porbably in little danger with the buoyant salt water and a huge crowd of people (including his parents) to fish him out of the water. However, I thought the emcee would be electocuted when he jumped into the water still wearing his body mike.
The other close call was I believe in 1979 when one of the sky ride gondolas almost fell. Apparently a cable got caught on something when the car went over one of the support towers. The eventual result was that the entire ride ground to a halt with three of the gondolas bunching up together. I found out many years later from a KI maintenance man that the middle of three "bunched-up" gondolas had slipped it cable and only the friction of the two surrounding gondolas kept the middle gondola from plunging to the ground with its occupants. This man who told me this was the one managed to chain the center gondola to the surrounding gondolas. Nobody was injured, but it was hours before those in the bunched up gondolas were finally rescued.
No one was injured or hurt. But several people were stuck for over 8 hours.
High winds caused the ride to jam at one of the support towers. The cable kept moving, but the cars did not. The ride's safety system did shut it down, but not until after three cars had bunched up at that column.
The cars, as a precaution, were chained to the support. They were safely lodged in the support structure, but had come off of the cable itself.
I have a terribly dramatic picture of the cars and people being rescued from them. Sorry, it's not available for viewing. One of the cars was nearly sideways, and as I said people were trapped there for hours.
The ride did re-open and ran for 2 or three more seasons, I believe.
I will ride nearly any ride, but refuse cable cars. I am terrified of them, have never felt safe and opt to walk. IMO they are possibly one of the most dangerous attractions at any park.
Shaggy
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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.
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D.o.t. Crew 2000
Flight of Fear/Wave Swinger crew 2001-2002
It was one of those Intamin rapids rides where you go through the trough in those circular rafts. SFOT quit buying the Intamin rubber floats (big black rubber flotats the rafts ride on) and bought them from a cheaper company. However, the original floats had many individual bladders inside them, so if one was punctured the other reamaing ones would still keep the raft floating.
The new ones, though, only had one bladder. It was punctured, and the raft overturned in the rapids. All but one of the riders escaped, and that person (I believe it was a woman) drowned.
All of those raft rides were closed throughout the SF system as a precaution. The ride reopened later with Intamin floats.
Before Shockwave existed, there was a Galaxy coaster located there. I recall distinctly on the local news and in the papers when a young man stood up on the ride and was killed when his head struck a support column. Word of mouth always stated that he had been decapitated.
This was in the early 1980's.
Shaggy
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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.
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Kevin is a coaster freak.
1) Most likely - An automobile accident going to and from the park. This is about 20 times as likely as dying in a ride accident. Nobady actually counts this, but based on typical automobile fatality rates about 40 people die each year going to and from parks.
2) Second most likely - Dying of a physical ailment while walking around the park or eating. People die every year at parks from heart attacks, etc. while they are just walking around. This is in part due to extra activity and heat stress.
3) Third most likely - Dying of a physical ailment while on a ride. This happens several times per year around the country. Despite the publicity about brain injuries, heart attacks are most common. A coronary is less ":sexy" though in the press.
4) Least likely - Dying in a ride accident - This happens on an average of 2 times per year out a total attendance of 300,000,000 at parks. See the eidtorial here a Coaster Buzz for the number of people who have died in amusment ride accidents every year for the last 30 years.
Amusement parks like to avoid publicity about people dying regardless of the cause. The same is true for your grocery or the local mall. People die at them too.
- Andrew Hyde
http://www.experiencethepoint.com
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