Family of 12-year-old injured in Xcelerator accident retains lawyer

Jason Hammond said:
No blood, no news. It's a shame. But, your probably right.

If it bleeds is leads, right?

BTW, did anybody else hear about the girl who got injured in a ride accident in NH over the weekend?

http://www.wmur.com/news/21028932/detail.html

While it is true that this has not made it to the networks. Remember that a few weeks ago most of the majors were showing live footage when the boomerang got stuck at PGA. As stories go the KBF is considerably more news worthy.

KBF is more newsworthy, but there isn't much to show.

As for the incident in NH: Heard about it. Very strange. How does one get ejected from what is basically a Class 2 ride with a Class 5 restraint without any mechanical failure?

(Forces are back and down even at top speed; restraint is a KMG seat with shoulder bar, basically a rigid 5-point restraint)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I would just as soon receive my information from someone other than the riders' attorney, but that's just me. Still wish we had more details about what happened.

Ensign Smith said:
Offering to pay the kid's bills implies an admission of culpability, which could be the foundation for a very substantial lawsuit.

Since perhaps not everyone read it the first time around... ;)

RideMan: The state of NH and the ride builder did a thorough test and found absolutely NOTHING wring with the ride.

I'm aware of that, in fact was aware of it at the time. So my point still stands; let me rewrite it this time: In the absence of any mechanical failure, how does one get ejected from what is basically a Class 2 ride with a Class 5 restraint?

Actually I assumed from the beginning that there was no mechanical failure because if something had broken, it would probably have made the news along with the notice of the passenger ejection. So what really happened?

--Dave Althoff, Jr (<- has theories, but nothing more...)

Rider error?

Maybe this is too obvious. But, if the restraint didn't fail, I would assume it wasn't closed properly.

Regarding the Remix II ride, I have seen one that operates with automatic closing restraints (Techno Power) and one that operates with manual pulldown restraints (Remix II).

All the other safety systems should otherwise work the same, or at least I would think they would. From my own observations: if a bar is not in the locked position, a light on one seat of each seat pair should indicate a problem with that seat pair, plus a second operator has to press a green button when all bars are closed and that's all before the main control booth operator can even start the ride.

There's was also apparently one previous ejection from an Orbiter Extreme (aka Remix), so this bulletin shows ride modifications that the manufacturer is working on to prevent rider ejections:

http://uscancares.org/mbulletin/137/HSE_July09.pdf

What I find interesting is that the Remix rides appear to use very similar KMG seats seen on Afterburners and Spinouts, but they also appear not to use the side loop type bars at about head height that appear on the outermost seats of the KMG rides. The modifications proposed in the bulletin would obviously change all that for good, and they would likely not provide as much arm freedom due to the extra bars on the sides.

The picture of corporate American. Greed and fear of litigation takes over caring for those that are hurt.

super, are you that naive? I think most people understand that any kind of admission of anything in our society makes that party responsible for far more than the immediate care of an injured person. The attorney they hired, who by the way, is most likely a corporation himself, is looking for more than 40% of the cost of an overnight stay in a hospital and a few bandages and prescriptions.

If Cedar Fair were to offer to care for these people, you can bet that every physical problem they would have for the next 70 years, whether it be cancer, impotence, or incontinence would be a result of this accident and would require that Cedar Fair fix the problem.

Bear, whatever you're smoking, pass some of it this way :)

You may be going a tad overboard by that last comment.

No , actually he's dead on. That's pretty much the strategy that these particular practioneers of the law use out here.

Jason Hammond said:
Maybe this is too obvious. But, if the restraint didn't fail, I would assume it wasn't closed properly.

I'm a big fan of Occam's razor myself...

Occam's Razor? Is that a new model from Gilette? :)

They say it's the simplest model.... ;)