Lolly Swing topples over at Puyallup Spring Fair

Let me start be saying that I'm glad that none of the people involved were seriously injured. I had a few different family members mention to me that they saw this on the news this past weekend. I'm not saying that this is no big deal, but the fact that this is in the national news is just another reason I hate watching the news. The news has become just like any other TV show. It's all about ratings. Riding amusement rides is one of the safest recreational activities you could possibly participate in.

I got this information during a slide show that I photographed at the 2006 Disney World ACE Convention.

Injury Risk for Common Recreational Activities

Original Slideshow Photo

<edit>I just did a google search on "fixed site amusement rides" and found this.

I think this was one of those where you had a combination of factors: saturated soil, a small base that didn't sufficiently maintain the CoG inside the supporting structure, and an imbalanced load. Having been on one of the larger models when it stopped mid-cycle due to an imbalanced load (such as happend to us at a RRR event), have to admit it seems weird that the smaller models don't have some sort of automatic shut-down when the CoG gets off-center.

I'm not sure why you'd start blasting the media for covering this, especially since we're linking to a Washington newspaper, where it certainly is newsworthy. It has nothing to do with ratings.

I guess I forgot to mention my family saw it on local news here in Ohio.

And it would still be newsworthy, as it's a fairly common ride.

I see what your saying. I just thought a story about a few people 2000 miles away getting bumps and bruises wasn't worth putting in an Ohio news television broadcast. Being that this is a website about the amusement industry, it's completely significant to post it here.

You could say the story isn't as much about the people getting hurt as much as it is about the ride itself having fallen. Which in and of itself would be nationally newsworthy if the accident were caused by rides failure in some manner. But, even though they don't know yet exactly why it fell, they make it sound like it wasn't ride failure. More like improper installation or poor ground conditions.

It seems like it would have been more of a local story asking if the rest of the rides in that particular fair were in any danger of scumming to the same fate.

Slow.

News.

Day.

Investigators have apparently concluded that saturated wet soil was the proximate cause of the incident; that is, the ride itself did not fail; it just fell over.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009096653_webride21m.html

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Whoops! Who forgot to pound in the tent pegs?