Kings Island attorney says woman suffered hip injury at work, not on Son of Beast

Maybe she'll get some free passes out of this. She'd probably have to take her lawyers though since they'd probably get half anyway. ;)

Sounds like the park knew what they were doing in letting this go to trial. Although, I would suspect they probably made a settlement offer.

IMHO, NO Good can come from it. Even if they win, *THE PARK* THEY LOSE. If she was on the ride in question with the other settled with plantiffs

Honestly I hope Kings Island wins this lawsuit because if she could have settled she should have! Greedy people trying to milk it for all its worth!

I'm sorry, do you know what she's going through? Can you put a price on physical impairment?

That's very true Charles... The one person in the accident that stands up to fight in regard to the matter ends up getting effectively kept down by the company and it's lawyers?? That wouldn't look good for the park either.

Im not on either side. And I play no more Mr. Nice guy either when it comes to others negligence.

Chuck, wishing the best for both parties interest.

If she's also claiming she was injured at work, that's not good. Was that Plan B? Also, let me ask the experts-- what do you think of the expert witness' claim that the ride was pulling 10G at the time of the accident?

RatherGoodBear said:
If she's also claiming she was injured at work, that's not good. Was that Plan B? Also, let me ask the experts-- what do you think of the expert witness' claim that the ride was pulling 10G at the time of the accident?

The train made it back to the station, From what I understand it was a busted ledger under the track and caused a sudden bang or impact of like 10g but the forward motion continued and it didn't jump track. I've had G train lap bars slam on me on Boss and Legend before the PTC's but that wasn't the G train. It was the Premier train and I only had that happen a couple times but they were similar except that the Premier train had that big pad thingy. The bars were also quite heavier than most trains.
Chuck

10g's sounds extreme, but the duration is key.

10g is entirely believable - it wasn't of long duration, but was quite abrupt for it to have caused all the injuries on other passengers. For comparison's sake, here are some forces in say, a car accident at only 30 mph (brought to you by some people who think seat belts are a good idea).... ;) http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/carcr2.html

I just served jury duty last week (not in Warren County, of course) and it wasn't nearly as interesting as this sounds to be. :(

Do you think coaster enthusiasts would be challenged as potential jurors in the voir dire process for a case like this?

*Imagines a group of enthusiasts trying to play it cool when asked about any potential biases, but their faces (and coaster t-shirts) just plain give them away* :)

What the hell is that link rollergator? :) Don't tell me you can understand what that say's. That's craziness.
But my guess is If the average coaster can hit 4 g's at the bottom of a drop, which is designed to catch the falling object, than any hit taken head on anywhere on SOB's course could register 10 or more G's.
Also, as far as the woman falling at work... that's understandable given her recent injuries.
I find this so interesting... I wish it was on Judge Judy.

Jeff, if the park's PI taped her doing her everyday errands without much pain. Then the lady is trying to pull a fast one on KI. Also chances are, she did injury her hip at work but didn't noise the pain much until the accident.

Jeff, I do know what she is claiming since I have 2 cracked vertebrae in my lower back but that happened more than 20 years ago. The docs have told me that I will always have some sort of back pain. I do enjoy riding rollercoasters despite the posted warnings. It will be my dumb luck that my back will go out while in a high g slam turn on a rollercoaster.

Her getting "caught" by a private investigator could be explained. When some people are injured, and they feel a lot of reoccurring pain, they may take medication to ease the pain. When the pain has eased up, some people will run the errands that they haven't been able to, and it may appear that they are not injured.

I know from experience (not me, but a family member.)

They should rename SOB. Lawsuit: The Ride.

I don't care what was taped. Collin calling anyone "greedy" without knowing the facts is being a douche. Let's face it, the attorney for KI has practically admitted something was wrong and that she's entitled to relief. It's up to the court to decide how much now, based on the facts. That's why we have trials.

^ Would you have to sign a wavier before riding?

I also don't see anything wrong with KI defending against this suit. It appears they've agreed to pay medical expenses, but they're going to defend against additional damages. The plaintiff's attorney has stated that she's going to need additional operations and care for the rest of her life. Maybe, maybe not. Who's to know for sure? That's why in general I'm against these intangible things like mental anguish, loss of future income, that can be soothed with very tangible dollars.

From the article I infer that she's made a claim at work saying she was injured there. If that's true and she's trying to get workman's comp, that's fraud.

aerodynamic said:
What the hell is that link rollergator? :) Don't tell me you can understand what that say's. That's craziness.

I don't know about Gator, but the contents of that link make perfect sense to me. They also demonstrate pretty dramatically what it is that seat belts do, why they are such a good idea in a car, and by extension, why they are really not well suited to amusement rides where the forces are usually much better controlled. Automotive engineers put a lot of effort into building a vehicle so that in a crash, it will collapse, increasing the distance over which the seat comes to a stop. Attaching the driver to the seat means that he gets to take advantage of that distance. Detaching the driver means that it doesn't matter how much the vehicle collapses, he comes to an abrupt stop when he impacts the dashboard.

Now somewhere around here I have a copy of the State incident report from the Son of Beast incident...

...Here it is. The report does not go into detail as to the dynamic results of the failure, but instead concentrates on the cause of the failure and the nature of the failure. The report indicates that when Bent #290 failed, it allowed the track to drop approximately five inches. Does anybody know approximately how fast the train would have been going roughly hafway up the uphill side of the big helix? I'm going to guess that the ledgers are about 6' apart, and if the train is going, say, 30 MPH (44 ft/sec) and it drops 6 inches...

Well, let's see... the train drops 0.5 feet in the first 6 feet, which means it travels in the Z direction (up and down)* 0.5 feet in 6/44 = 0.136 seconds. Hmmm...Applying a bunch of calculations, I'm only getting an acceleration of 55.56 ft/sec/sec which only works out to 1.74 G. That's acceleration in Z caused solely by the "pothole" in the rail caused by the failed bent. The whole bounce action happens over a distance of about twelve feet, which reduces the impact of the whole incident.

I know my calculations are not right. Anybody else want to give it a go?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

* Based on the coordinate axis specified in ASTM F 2137...