Federal lawsuit filed against SFGAm.

If you remember the incident that happened last summer involving the Tornado water ride at Hurricane Harbor (SFGAm), lawsuits have been filed regarding a couple kids being launched from their raft and sustaining injuries.

I smell a rat. This ride unless you are acting recklessly, cannot launch you 30 ft. The laws of physics don't allow it.

Short story so didn't bother with a news contributions.

Click here.

The mother of the girl came on here didn't she? She posted herself about it, since a few people here were saying it could have been rider error, and she was upset about people saying her daughter did anything wrong. I'm pretty sure I'm remembering the right accident. *** Edited 7/4/2007 7:20:12 AM UTC by P18***

Yes someone did. Here is the news topic and responses.

Click here. *** Edited 7/4/2007 7:55:37 AM UTC by Chitown***

Notice how both of those posters that defended and added info to the mother's post havn't logged in since a couple of days since they posted on that thread...

Karen M - "I WAS THERE!!" who specifically blames "foreign workers with accents" for the ride being unsafe. Reg 6/17/06 - last log in was 6/19/06

Jenna2007x - "YOU CAN FLIP I KNOW!!!...I support Kayla's mom 100%!!!!" Reg 7/24/06 ..last log in was 7/25/06

It's a shame that the kids got hurt regardless of who was at fault. But this all seems really fishy.

^Not really. If they registered just to make some points about the topic at hand, you can't really expect them to be pissed off at the entire culture of the website and then be all like....

"Oh but by the way I *did* really enjoy Raging Bull that day!"

Maybe it's hard for some of us to believe but the idea of posting on an internet message board dedicated to riding roller coasters just doesn't seem too compelling to some people. Especially after having your child injured and then having the owner of said message board tell you it was probably your kid's fault.

One point that makes me think...most park chains now "import" employees from around the world, we've seen them from Europe and now they're coming from Southeast Asia. Most parks use these people in merchandise, food services, and admissions - but only Six Flags takes them from freshly hired and puts them into ride operations and into positions where safety is at the forefront. I would never mean to suggest that any one ethnicity in general has any more or less capacity for learning or thinking than any other - we are all the same and we all balance each other's strengths - but for Lord's sake, DON'T PUT THESE KIDS ON RIDES!!! If there is ANY deficiency at all in understanding the culture or the language clearly, there is immediately a safety issue. I was horrifed over the last two seasons at Great Adventure every time I went to ride Nitro and found half or more of the attendants could not understand basic Englsh except to phonetically warble "happy 45th anniversary" as they were taught. Along with the typical unruliness and LOUDNESS of the guests in that park (conbined with station music that is WAY too loud and certainly an additional distraction), they're almost asking for something to happen. Going back further, the young lady from Thailand who was killed on Scream! at Magic Mountain three years ago, the employee who short-cutted through the ride area and was run over by a train, obviously did not understand something. Why is it not common freekin' sense for management to understand that the non-fluent should not be employed in these safety sensitive areas? Is it not obvious by the type of incidents SF parks have had on rides recently? Other companies seem to understand this and know what to do to avoid such trouble.

Hey, here's an idea. Why don't the stupid parents teach their brats how to hold on to the rafts? it really makes me sick how ignorant people stay ignorant.

Damn the american system, why does everyone get to win $20 million for every time the get a boo-boo? This is just the kind of censorship that has been ruining so much happiness for years. Maybe they'll put restraints on the water slides now...
What kind of injuries did they get from tumbling down a slide? I'll ready to bet that it was hardly more than a bruise. Notice how these mothers are so quick to assume that the park is at fault, when millions of others have used the ride safely, but when her young boys 'fall out' it must mean that the park itself was behind it. Kids are idiots, a mother should know that.

EDIT: hmmm, so one of them was a girl, and had to get 28 stitches. Now that says something, but I still think it was probably rider error. Anyhoo, for that kind of injury, the park should definitely pay up something, but I hope they aren't going for millions just because they can. *** Edited 7/4/2007 5:20:22 PM UTC by SuperSteve***

What does being a girl have to do with it?

---

Seahawk & the Wave said:
I would never mean to suggest that any one ethnicity in general has any more or less capacity for learning or thinking than any other - we are all the same and we all balance each other's strengths - but for Lord's sake, DON'T PUT THESE KIDS ON RIDES!!!

---

This is really shortsighted and reactionary.

The bottom line is that no matter what a worker's native language or country of origin, these folks go through a rigorous training and testing regimen before they're put on their rides. If there is an excessive language barrier or lack of understanding on behalf of the trainee, there should be a judgement call made by the trainer. There are plenty of people from this country who shouldn't be put on these rides, either, and the responsibility to make that call is on the people who are administering the tests regardless nationality.

I agree with you - in a perfect world, training would weed out anyone who isn't up to understanding what's required for the job, regardless of where they came from. To just point and say, "hey, look at all the foreigners running the rides" does come off as sounding kinda racist & xenophobic. But in the situation of a company desperate to get help for cheap and get them trained as fast as possible and out in the park where they are immediately needed - and in Great Adventure's case, they do need every single body they can get their hands on just so they can get rides open - they're going to cut corners, and I know from personal experience and the reports of others that they do. If a ride attendant doesn't have the language skills to understand whether a guest is telling them they're not seated properly in the seat and need to be released, or whether they're just saying "hi", that's a problem. These workers are processed through training so quickly at SF, it's scary. If the people who were working on Superman at SFNE three years ago had been through ride operations safety training as Cedar Fair or Disney delivers it, they would have known to prevent an under-five-foot, over-250-pound from riding in the front seat - and bonus idiot points to whomever decided to put the longer-belt seats in the front, where the heaviest the ejector air is. In general, I also think SF is wrong to put ANYONE they've just hired off the street as a first-time employee on rides, period. Don't you have to be in your third year to get into rides at a CF park? You do need some initial understanding of how the park works, how the guests act, and what's overall important to the business before they put you in the most safety sensitive positions.

---

Seahawk & the Wave said:
If the people who were working on Superman at SFNE three years ago had been through ride operations safety training as Cedar Fair or Disney delivers it, they would have known to prevent an under-five-foot, over-250-pound from riding in the front seat

---

I can almost guarantee of every person working Superman that day their first language was English. I don't have firsthand knowledge because I wasn't there but I am very familiar with this park and the odds of there being a foreign worker on the ride at the time is low, and there being more than one is very low. But like I said I don't have firsthand knowledge and even if they were all from Poland, I'd still contend it doesn't matter because their trainers were certainly from the U.S.

All you're indicating to me is if we take everything in your post at face value (and that may not be a great idea) there's something broken with SF's training system, not with the foreign worker program. I could see an argument somewhere if SF's safety record was must worse than those of other chain's but I have no idea if that's the case or not, and really that would be very hard to quantify.

Maybe it is indeed the case but I would think that if there were a trend of more park accidents happening in the presence of foreign workers SF would have surely spotted it by now. Having people die on your rides isn't profitable, plus it's really...you know...crappy in general, and the parks have every interest to make safety #1 no matter how tough staffing is. *** Edited 7/4/2007 7:29:02 PM UTC by matt.***

right again, but slow down a minute: I would also presume that the people working on Superman at SFNE were Americans, residents of the area around the park. I did not say they were not, in fact I made no assumption about their ethnicity. It was the first day of the season, if I remember right, and the foreign students usually don't arrive until later. I brought that incident up to illustrate that it's all about the TRAINING and what gets pushed through in the name of getting the park staffed no matter how. Undertrained, inattentive employees come from everywhere.

It also doesn't help that SF routinely staffs a ride like that with 3 or 4 people, while CF will use 8 or 10. That also makes a difference in safety. Somehow, they find a way to have enough people to have adequate staffing on every ride, every day, and they are all trained and focused. That makes a difference too - next time you're on a roller coaster rolling out of the station at a CF park, watch what the attendants are doing: checking every single rider visually. Their eyes do not leave the train or its contents. At SF, they're looking all around, talking, doing whatever, all the while holding their thumbs in the air for no good reason other than that's what they were told the procedure is. *** Edited 7/4/2007 8:34:08 PM UTC by Seahawk & the Wave***

This all sounds a lot different from your original statement of "but for Lord's sake, DON'T PUT THESE KIDS ON RIDES" which is fine. I think what we've gotten down to is appropriate training is appropriate training, foreign workers or not. Which was my point.

Not to sound harsh, but this is what happens in a country so rapidly diversifying, people are thrown around as to which language we are suppose to be speaking now. And yes, I'm one for the "central English idea" where it wouldn't kill everyone to learn basic English in this country, because when I walk past an couple English businesses in my town who added some Spanish as well (who were formally ALL English), then past an ALL Spanish business with absolutely NO English, then an all English business with absolutely NO Spanish, in a place where everything not a few years ago was All English, That kinda irks me as to who is being more accommodating (the english with some spanish) and lets face it, ITS CONFUSING AND CAUSES PROBLEMS, sorry to go off topic, but everyone loves to throw it in Americans' faces how we are so "narrow minded and only know one language" (even though we've been dominant English for how long located in an area where we really had no need to learn any other languages...) Why do some people who come here "only know one language" as well? (Spanish) wouldn't it be all easier if we were all at least speaking the same language for the most part? [/end rant, sorry] *** Edited 7/4/2007 9:59:25 PM UTC by P18***

---

P18 said:
Not to sound harsh, but this is what happens in a country so rapidly diversifying, people are thrown around as to which language we are suppose to be speaking now. And yes, I'm one for the "central English idea" where it wouldn't kill everyone to learn basic English in this country, because when I walk past an couple English businesses in my town who added some Spanish as well (who were formally ALL English), then past an ALL Spanish business with absolutely NO English, then an all English business with absolutely NO Spanish, in a place where everything not a few years ago was All English, That kinda irks me as to who is being more accommodating (the english with some spanish) and lets face it, ITS CONFUSING AND CAUSES PROBLEMS, sorry to go off topic, but everyone loves to throw it in Americans' faces how we are so "narrow minded and only know one language" (even though we've been dominant English for how long located in an area where we really had no need to learn any other languages...) Why do some people who come here "only know one language" as well? (Spanish) wouldn't it be all easier if we were all at least speaking the same language for the most part? [/end rant, sorry] *** Edit

ed 7/4/2007 9:59:25 PM UTC by P18***

---

Right on! I agree 100%! If you're going to be in our country, speak english. If I was going to another country i would learn to speak their language before i went.

And we were doing so well. What a wonderful way to celebrate Independence Day with (completely off-topic) xenophobic hate-speech.

Let's hope that

a. this thread gets closed in a timely manner

or

b. this board gets an "ignore" function soon. *** Edited 7/4/2007 11:38:07 PM UTC by matt.***

---

Seahawk & the Wave said:

It also doesn't help that SF routinely staffs a ride like that with 3 or 4 people, while CF will use 8 or 10. That also makes a difference in safety. Somehow, they find a way to have enough people to have adequate staffing on every ride, every day, and they are all trained and focused. That makes a difference too - next time you're on a roller coaster rolling out of the station at a CF park, watch what the attendants are doing: checking every single rider visually. Their eyes do not leave the train or its contents. At SF, they're looking all around, talking, doing whatever, all the while holding their thumbs in the air for no good reason other than that's what they were told the procedure is. *** Edited 7/4/2007 8:34:08 PM UTC by Seahawk & the Wave***

---

I'm sorry, but you need to be taught a lesson. Are you ready?

1) You make the assumption that just because you're from another country that you can't speak English fluently enough to communicate basic commands. You know how many languages the average American knows? (including me)--one. I know a little bit of Spanish that I've remembered from high-school, but I'm thirty-six so that wouldn't help me out in a foreign park. The Brazilians I worked with at Six Flags America in 03' were fluent in English, and of course that got better the more they worked.

2) The number of attendants on the platform has absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the guests. At Cedar Point, it's strictly for ride-capacity. Remember that Cedar Point is a resort, not just an amusement park? Why is that my friend Bryan yelled out to the ride ops on Iron Dragon two-weeks ago that his arm was caught in a bad way (his elbow was above his hand) and even though he asked them to reset his harness, they let the train dispatch anyway? You know what he said after getting off the ride "The guy just put his thumb up in the air." Boy, that sounds a lot like what you're accusing Six Flags of, now doesn't it?

He was lucky that he only got a contusion (a bruise) on his arm. It didn't completely ruin his day, but there were certain rides he haid to stay off to avoid getting bumped. Luckily, we had another day at the Point.

3) Just where do you think Cedar Point gets all their employees? From Sandusky or the surrounding areas? Hell no. Read the nametags of the employees and you'll most of them go to different colleges, or come from other states. Again, I'll remind you that Cedar Point is a resort, so they need lots of employees to deal with the crowds. They also have dorms so those college students can stay somewhere at night. I don't know about this year, but at least in 2000, there was a heavy international prescence as well.

4) You make the assumption that everyone who works at a Six Flags park has absolutely no concern for the guests, and you would be absolutely wrong. Stop making such broad generalizations. You're making yourself look really bad for doing so.