Spider Collapse at Camden Park

http://booneexaminer.com/update-ride-suffers-collapse-at-camden-park-p1841-1.htm

For the record, that particular spider is evil. It made me very sick once as a child.

Glad no one was killed. Billy and I almost rode that about a month ago.

Camden Park seems to be in a state of refurbishing their rides the last few years. It's too bad that the Spider wasn't already done.

This isn't the first time this has happened at the park. They used to have an Enterprise. It malfunctioned while in the upright position and fell to the ground. I believe that their were deaths in that incident. I don't remember exactly how long ago this was, but I want to guess it was about 20 years ago.

Im thinking this ride was refurbished in 2001 and it also had a incident where a empty tub had the leg area drop and destroyed a tub a few years ago. It honestly looked new when I went in 2001.

Chuck, not positive on my facts.

Yikes! That ride was running great when I rode it a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure it was one of two things: either a sweep broke or a support rod broke. I wonder which...and I wonder if they'll fix it...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Haven't we seen other Spider rides have similar problems in recent years?

Wow. Except for the fact there were no fatalities, it seems to me that failures on Spiders/Monsters/Octopuses don't get any worse than this.

I hope nobody caught the actual collapse on film.

Most of Camden Park's clientele wouldn't know how to use a video camera or cell phone, Smith. lol

If it was what I thnk it was, it is something that has been a known problem with the Spider for a very long time.

It is clear to me that the Spider gets special care at Camden, and I am very surprised that this has happened. Spiders are great rides, and getting increasingly rare. I hope Camden will repair this ride, or better still, refurbish it with the larger sweeps that don't crack in response to this incident.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Here is an update to the story...

You know, I still get mixed up on the exact difference between Spiders and their various descendants. This is more than a curiosity for me, because it has some bearing on something I'm working on. If I understand correctly, true Spiders have eight arms with one car at the end of each arm. After that, though, it becomes muddled.

A true Spider has 6 legs with 2 cars at the end.

LostKause said:
Here is an update to the story...

Wow. Worst comment ever:

“When you think about as many years as the park has been around, things like this don’t happen very often. They have a good safety record,” Caudill said. “You see it in the news that things like this happen at King’s Island and Cedar Point. When you are dealing with mechanical things, it’s always possible that they can break down.”

I'm pretty sure the proper way to downplay an incident isn't to claim it happens everywhere and it's fairly common and then implicate other parks by name.

I noticed that too, Gonch. It was a very unprofessional comment, and really not true too. I can't remember the last time I read about a ride malfunction at CP or KI.

I just read that an accident occurred on Camden Park's Spider last year as well, when a young girl was about to get off of the ride, and the open ride vehicle raised into the air. She didn't fall out, and it was determine that it was the cause of operator error.

And as far as Camden's safety record goes, I can only really recall something going wrong at the park once before. That was the Enterprise accident that I mentioned earlier. I just read a few sentences about the accident, and no one was killed, but about 50 people were injured when the rides hydraulic lifter malfunctioned.

Lift chain breaks on Vortex? Also KI's Giant Enterprise that they had, Had three incidents and was finally operated at a 80* angle until its removal

Lord Gonchar said:

LostKause said:
Here is an update to the story...

Wow. Worst comment ever:

“When you think about as many years as the park has been around, things like this don’t happen very often. They have a good safety record,” Caudill said. “You see it in the news that things like this happen at King’s Island and Cedar Point. When you are dealing with mechanical things, it’s always possible that they can break down.”

I'm pretty sure the proper way to downplay an incident isn't to claim it happens everywhere and it's fairly common and then implicate other parks by name.

But at least it wasn't somebody associated with the park; it was the fire chief. I like how the first half of the article is accident report, while the second half is advertisement. The Spider fell apart, but don't forget about our Starlight admission. LOL.

Well, yeah. It's all coming back to me know. The SOB accidents too.

Wildcat...

King's Island? What's that?

It's a little amusement park in southwestern Ohio. But that's not important right now.