Man dies at KI after riding Firehawk

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/springfield-news/man-dies-following-ride-at-kings-island-241317.html

http://www.wlwt.com/news/20331491/detail.html

My prayers go out to his family.

While I doubt that this has anything to do with a ride malfunction. Will KI get labled as not being a safe park? SOB stories have been all over the Cincy area news for a while and now this.

First of all, my thoughts and prayers go out to the family.

Other than that, I belive we're all thinking: "Here we go again!"

Are we all going to have to go through a NASA flight screening before we can ride a coaster or will KI have to have a forst aid station on every coaster platform?

The first article mentioned that he had pre-existing breathing problems, so I would guess that for whatever reason the ride (or a combination of what he had ridden so far) had aggravated his condition. Unfortunately people will still pin this on the park (I noticed the second report didn't mention he had a pre-existing condition).

My thoughts and prayers do go out to the family though.

This is very sad news indeed. Always hate hearing about this freak occurrences. You need to know your state of health 100% before going to an amusement park.

One thing that caught my eye in the article: Firehawk's capacity is only 400 pph? That's horrible.

If your running one train, that would sound about right to me.

The article said up to 400 riders per hour, Amnesiac. Why would any large park install a ride with that low of capacity? No wonder the line for Firehawk is so long. (I still don't have a credit for that one becasuse of the long line, btw.)

America has become so unhealthy, despite the fact that health care has supposedly improved our quality of life. It seems that more people have been dieing or have been hospitalized in the last few years after riding a coaster than in the past. This doesn't reflect the safety of Kings Island or any other park as much as it reflects the quality of health of the people who live within driving distance to the park. imho.

My condolences to the family and the park staff.

Edit - for spelling.

Its not that people have been dieing more today than in the past, its that it receives more coverage than it ever did. Perhaps in the past a small park has an incident, and you would hear about it in the local papers, and radio stations...today we hear about any little thing that happens at any little park, here in the US or overseas.

LostKause, they built Firehawk because it was a relocated coaster, making it a very cheap way to add a coaster to the park.

Notice how no parks have purchased a Vekoma flyer after the original ones. (ignoring the new mini-Stingray flyers)

I didn't say that more people were dieing. I said that it seems that more people are dieing after riding coasters. I agree that news coverage is a lot better than even a decade ago, and that could be a good reason for it seeming that way.

For what it's worth, Firehawk apparently received a clean bill of health, as it was operating today.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/56222.aspx