Man Dies shortly after riding Big Thunder Mtn.

This is a very sad thing to happen , but it is a tradgic accident. As it is an acciendent why dont Disney let it out if they have done nothing wrong?

Cause they're at the entrance saying to guests: "BTMR is facing a few "technical" issues today, and will be closed". The last thing disney would do is make a public condolance to the family.

If someone dies at the American Express office or at the IBM office do you read about it in the news or do they issue a press release? Of course not. They are places of business.

First off my sympathy goes out to the relative and friends of the deceased. Death is always tragic though a part of life.

People die in amusement parks all the time. They also die at work, at home, and in the grocery. Annual attendance is over 300 million visitors for US amusement parks. Add heat stress and you will get a bunch of deaths even without rides. If I recall correctly, the Indy 500 averages a couple of deaths per year in the stands due to heart attacks, etc., and that is a one day event.

In this particular case, it seems that an investigation was conducted which went considerably beyond what was the norm called for by the unfortunate incident. Disney was hardly covering up if there was a governmental investigation that shut down the ride for some time. This is especially true considering that the victem of the heart attack had probably been off the ride for several minutes, and the fact that there apparently was no malfunction.

Imagine if every business may a public announcement every time someone who was on the premises died of natural causes. Actually, they wouldn't be able to do it because the reports would be so numerous that no media outlet would carry them.

*** This post was edited by Jim Fisher on 12/10/2002. ***

The term "died at the park" is avoided at all costs. When T-Wolf had it's death in 95, the issued statement reported that she was injured at the park/died later. I have seen this response to many accidents, not only at amusement parks.

People die all the time, it's not really a story except for the sad impact it has on the person and his/her family. I think the colonel in the movie Breaker Morant said it best, "Live every day as if it were your last and someday you are sure to be right."