Officials fight off Playland's bad publicity

Posted | Contributed by Jeff

Westchester officials hoping to sell Playland as a family fun spot this summer instead find themselves fending off bad publicity following the third death at the park in under four years. While some industry experts have called the tally of fatalities troublesome, officials at the county-owned amusement park said no conclusions should be drawn from the three deaths since May 2004.

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Playland Park

"Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. Keep moving."

No death at an amusement park should be taken lightly, but neither should it be sensationalized. Three deaths in four years isn'ts exactly a "spate of fatalites" like the article says. It's still about 1000 or so less than the number of people murdered in Philly or 100,000 killed in vehicle accidents nationwide during the same time period. Some perspective please.

These deaths are isolated and are all cause of rider stupidity/error. It's not like they have unsafe rides. I was just there last week and everything seemed plenty safe to me. Playland is very quickly becoming my favorite non corporate park.

When I was there, there were a pile of flowers at the Mind Scrambler entrance, along with the "This Ride is Closed" sign. I saw some very confused looking patrons that were obviously unaware of the incident.

I'm not sure anyone has been arguing that the rides at Playland are safe, but their operational and training procedures certainly warrant a closer look.

-Nate

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