Parents of girl who died in 2004 Oakwood Hydro accident upset over ads featuring the ride

Part of me says, what a tragic loss. I can't imagine the pain the family suffered.

Part of me says, it's been twelve years. It's time to let go of anger at the park and move on.

(And part of me says, seriously, WalesOnline? "They told me it is there most popular ride." Can't you afford a proofreader?)

Hayley Williams isn't dead, she's in a band called Paramore ;)

I hate to pile on someone who lost her daughter, and 12 days or 12 years... everyone recovers differently. Who's to say how long is enough?

That being said, what if she got hit by a Fiat? Should they no longer be allowed to advertise? People die at the hands of drunks, and their parents are subject to seeing sexy Mila Kunis in that Jim Beam ad.

I can't imagine, no matter how griefstricken I may be, that I'd expect a corporation to never advertise a specific product just to shield two people from emotional baggage.

My first thought was, wow, she would 28 now. I'm not sure why that makes it more sad for me. I would hate to see the ads, but I also don't think I could realistically expect them to not advertise it.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one torn between sympathy and "really???" on this.

There's no wrong way to grieve, but there are plenty of ways to have unreasonable expectations of others.

Part of it is the feeling on the part of the family that the park didn't face a harsh enough punishment for the death of the girl. They were fined some relatively small amount for a company their size, even though the death was caused explicitly by the park's lack of training of the operators, or simple operator error itself (the responsibility of which still falls upon the park for hiring those operators). I'm unaware of any civil suit the family filed against the park, if that is even something legally possible in that country. There is bound to still be hatred there on the part of the family. I personally don't think it's a step too far for the park to advertise a nonetheless popular ride which received enhanced safety precautions (and a new name) after the incident.

£250,000 is a small amount? Really?

That's not a small sum in my eyes. What makes you think that is a small sum for this business?

So what if they fined the park £500,000, £1,000,000 or £5,000,000 or maybe less, say £1,000. What amount of money is going to fix the situation? The correct answer is no amount of money will resolve the tragedy. The fine in so many ways is irrelevant and meaningless. There was no intent by the park or the employees to kill someone and no sum of money is going to undo the situation.

Unfortunately, what resolves the problem is the knowledge that is learned after the tragedy.

I agree with the rest that it's time to move on. I know the pain for the family will never pass, but you can't hold the business accountable forever.

I'll never forget watching the employee getting this ride ready for operations. Climbed up to the very top of the drop to check/repair something, and was standing right next to the edge without any apparent "fall protection".

ADA isn't the only thing we do differently. OSHA would have been ALL over the park if that had been in the US.

edit: I do feel badly for the parents...but the park definitely had changed procedures to keep the RIDERS safe...

I agree with everyone else that it's irrational to expect to never have the ride displayed in promotions. But she indicates the park promised as much. I don't know if that's true or just what the family wanted to hear, but if true, that kind of stinks. It's still not actionable and would have been a really stupid promise to make, but if the park did make it, then I could see why the family would be expressing their upset.

I feel sorry for the loss of the girl in 2004 but it's time to end the grieving. The park has done what needed to make the ride safer and it's thier business to run the ads and draw people in.

I watch Dr Phil and Judge Judy, so I'm clearly qualified to make snap judgements about people I've read about on the Internet... :-)

It just seems to me that the mother has made that horrific loss the core of her self-identification. Twelve years later, and she hasn't been able to -- or has chosen not to -- move beyond that loss. I can't help but think she talked to a low-level employee at the park who uttered soothing platitudes that she interpreted as promises not to advertise popular attractions.

kpjb said:

That being said, what if she got hit by a Fiat? Should they no longer be allowed to advertise? People die at the hands of drunks, and their parents are subject to seeing sexy Mila Kunis in that Jim Beam ad.

I can't imagine, no matter how griefstricken I may be, that I'd expect a corporation to never advertise a specific product just to shield two people from emotional baggage.

I would argue it's not like that at all. In this case, it would be a specific Fiat that had hit someone in an RTA. If my neighbour had hit and killed my kid with their Fiat, I likely wouldn't want it sat on their driveway every time I came out of my house.

Such a tragic accident. I haven't ridden that ride since the accident, in part because it's a water ride in what must be one of the wettest countries in the world, but also because it only has one boat and the fact that someone fell to their death from it just doesn't sit well with me when I'm supposed to be having fun.

Rick_UK said:

In this case, it would be a specific Fiat that had hit someone in an RTA. If my neighbour had hit and killed my kid with their Fiat, I likely wouldn't want it sat on their driveway every time I came out of my house.

"...in an RTA." What does RTA stand for? Around Chicago, it stands for Regional Transit Authority, which I assume is not what you mean :-)

Well, a neighbor's Fiat and Fiat's national advertising campaign are two different things. It's like saying McDonald's shouldn't advertise hamburgers because your neighbor choked to death on a Big Mac: national ad campaigns can't be held hostage to the losses of individuals.

^ Road traffic accident.

The Big Mac analogy similar though. Millions of Big Macs are consumed by people who presumably don't know what's in them every day. There's one Hydro (or 'Drenched' as it's now known) and it killed their kid, when it didn't need to.