Posted
A theme park is to be prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the death of a teenager three years ago. Hayley Williams, 16, from Pontypool, died at Oakwood in Pembrokeshire in 2004 after falling from the Hydro Ride. The HSE confirmed it intends prosecuting the park and that Ms Williams's family had been informed.
Read more from The BBC.
*** This post was edited by Twistercoasterman 5/20/2007 7:49:43 PM ***
If the drop was high then werent the shoulder restraints already in place
No, Hydro definitely did not have the shoulder restraints at the time, just the old Intamin T bar as found on their hypercoasters.
The problem with that is that the T wasn't sufficient to hold in a rider of sufficient-enough size, as seen on Perilous Plunge and Superman at Darien Lake. Notice the new "bent T" seen on rides like Dragster -- that extra angle makes a difference. For smaller riders, the basic T is sufficient on the hypers *in conjunction with the siderails* to keep the rider restrained. On Perilous Plunge and Hydro, the middle seats didn't have those sides. I don't recall what the exact outcome was on the findings back in the day, but I seem to recall it was possible for a smaller rider to slip out from under the T by moving off to one side.
I rode Hydro and felt perfectly safe doing so. This accident was a horrible tragedy, but I'm amazed we're still talking about it.
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