Magic Mountain employee killed in restricted area around Scream

what the heck was she doing in a restricted area???? Her Fault!

I saw some crazy things when I worked in ride ops. Crossing the track while the ride was in motion doesn't surprise me. In fact, I bet it happens a lot more than you hear about. I know of cases where someone jumped on the back of a train as it exited the station and jumped off at the lift hill. I have seen ride ops jump on a train as it was pulling into the station. And these are the rather "normal" things I have seen. I won't even go into detail about the really crazy stuff so as to not encourage other would be morons.

Yes, parks make "off limits" areas and employees/guests must adhere to them. This is a tragic accident but it appears that it is one that should never have happened if someone would have only followed the rules.

So as a ride op when you preform the morning brake tests (I'm guessing these are to check the block brakes) what is involved and where do people need to be to preform the check. My guess would be a person on the mid-course, brake run, station, and possibly the lift hill?

The only way I could think for a park to make it safer to walk from the station to the mid-course and back would be to build a walkway with hand rails on both sides. Not only would it protect the employees it would also protect the park from lawsuits. I don't think any lawyer (well i'm sure there are a few) would take a case where a person has a direct "safe" path from point A to point B and the person jumped a handrail walked in a danger zone and was injured or killed.

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I saw some crazy things when I worked in ride ops. Crossing the track while the ride was in motion doesn't surprise me. In fact, I bet it happens a lot more than you hear about. I know of cases where someone jumped on the back of a train as it exited the station and jumped off at the lift hill. I have seen ride ops jump on a train as it was pulling into the station. And these are the rather "normal" things I have seen. I won't even go into detail about the really crazy stuff so as to not encourage other would be morons.

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My goodness, what park were you in operations in? I am in my second year in Operations at SFOT and while I have seen some stupid stuff, nothing NEARLY as stupid as improperly riding a train out of, into, or through the station. I have seen thing such as a new attendant exiting the train when it stopped on the lift hill for a trouble light during a safety run, a person or two crossing between train cars, and just the regular not paying attention, but never anything as severe as you have witnessed. That almost makes me sick. Its a wonder there arent more accidents with people unsafely operating rides like that.

I feel bad for the woman, but as has probably been said before, if she was trained as an operator on scream she should have known better, and probably did, than to cross the track at any time, much less without the ride lockout in place. Sounds like to me she was maybe just looking for some sort of shortcut.

Everyone at SFOT was sat down and informed of this situation the day after the death and safety policies were reviewed by upper management to ride leads, and then to ride operators/attendants by their respective leads.

Its a sad day for SFMM and all of the other Six Flags parks who put themselves in the "What if this happened to us?" shoes like we did. Lets pray for better training to come out of this.

This wasn't just the woman's fault. Yes, she probably did something very stupid to have this happen to her, but at the same time, I don't understand why lock out practices didn't help, I don't understand why a ride op or mantinence guy wouldn't have seen her. I really don't understand why should would have been in the area in the first place, but, you know.....its not really my job to know, and not really my business. Just seems like there had to have been an awful lot of things go wrong at the same time for this to happen. Sad.

I like how CNN says that Magic Mountain has "18 other roller coasters on its 260-acre playground of rides and attractions"
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/04/09/coaster.death.ap/

The way some people count coasters they could be technically correct: 14 single-tracked coasters and 2 dual-tracked = 18.

But really, we're talking about someone's death. That typo is pretty irrelevant.
*** This post was edited by Mamoosh 4/12/2004 5:20:20 PM ***

Falls and failure to follow lock out/tag out procedures are the 2 largest causes of workplace deaths. It seems that amusement parks and portable ride companies have a significant problem with lock out procedures. Most of the worker deaths that I hear about are do to a failure to follow them.

Please, all ride operators, maintenance personnel, and supervisors out there; these procedures may seem like a pain in the backside at times, but they are there to protect you.

I'm not sure how lock outs work on rides but some construction sites if your goin into confined spaces or working in machinery you get your own personal lock. The way it works is there is a lock that fits over the breaker and you put your lock (and whoever else is working in the enclosed area) and the only way to turn on the machine again is for everyone to remove their lock from the main lock.

To me it sounds like she had to go into the ride area and walk to the mid course while it was running to restart the ride. To me it just seems like she went into a restriced area as a "short cut" to get back to the station.

My girlfriend and I were actually there the day it happened and got the news firsthand. We SAW the train going through right before it hit her (very chilling thought), although we didn't see it actually hit her. If we'd been one hundred feet further back along the parking lot we WOULD have seen it hit her, although it was far enough away that we probably wouldn't have realzed that anything happened. It is assumed the girl didn't feel comfortable about her brake-check, so she returned to the braking platform that lies just after the initial inversions, but failed to tell anyone she was doing so. They ran the ride and it hit her at 35 mph along the braking platform while she was busy checking double-checking them.

It was just as much the operator's fault for not checking the entire ride for employees as it was hers for not informing anyone of her intention to recheck the brakes.