What are operators supposed to do with vomit?

BogeyMon pretty much hit the nail on the head. In a lot of jurisdictions this is considered a BBP (blood bourn pathagen) and there is a specific protocal for handling such incidents. The days of just hosing it down the drain are over.

I had the (dis)privelage of witnessing my first protein spill at the beginning of the year while second to next in line for the back of Ghostrider. The crew was very efficient and just manually cleaned it up off the side of the car with disinfectant and towels. They sent it out on a dry run but were understanding when it came back and my wife and I asked if we could wait another train for our turn;)

As a Chaos operator last year, I saw some spills. At SFA, we were not allowed to clean up the mess ourselves. That was up to a manager. The thing that killed me is that people wouldn't let me know. I would just discover it.

At SFNO we disinfect.

I remember my first day working the Finnish Fling at WOF. Finnish Fling is one of the spinning barrel rides where you drop the floor when it's at full speed. I was co-operating the ride with a veteran who was also training me. After a couple cycles we had our first protein spill.

We cleared the ride, he grabbed this bag of stuff that looked like kitty litter. He sprinkled it over the vomit and waited a few seconds for it to harden. Then he told me to kick on the ride and VOOOOM! At full speed all that vomit hit the sides and fell down the cracks. I was impressed, but if that's their practice I can't image how much vomit is underneath that ride.

This was back in '94 so maybe they've changed their procedures since then :P

Greg *** Edited 10/17/2004 5:23:01 PM UTC by Greg***

this summer at Geauga Lake i cleaned puke at Americana on more than one occasion. Cleaned puke at the Merry Oldies (a few employees vomited)...bodily fluids on Americana...pee, poo and sadly period...yeah i cleaned it all...go me. Snap on gloves...disenfectant and go to work...twas fun

poop on merry oldies?!?! yeah, i can see it---
they sort of look like a baby changing station. NOT.

Glad I read this topic while I was eating... ;)

The procedure varies greatly depending on the ride and how the ride could be cleaned. If you have a rather open seat, usually places will just spray it off with water and continue on. If there are a lot of cracks (wooden coasters come to mind) it will usually take something more, but the powder is pretty hard to clean off.

Luckily for most parks, it is rare for people to lose it on a ride. Most get off and lose it on the floor or over the edge of a railing. This is much easier to clean up.

It's all about "pixie dust." We used Costco-size sacks on the Barf Buckets....er...Triple Wheel. :)

At SFEG, Oops is the official absorber of the park services and rides departments :). I would have to disagree about it being rare for people losing it on the rides, the majority I have cleaned are on carriers themselves. The worst is when it gets dragged all along the ride platform. I could tell many horror stories. *** Edited 10/18/2004 5:58:15 PM UTC by J.***

I don't know... maybe it is just from what I have seen. I've seen many a person vomiting after they got off a coaster, but not many while they were on it. There are exceptions, but the ratio that I have seen was probably 80% off coaster, 20% on coaster.

Now flat rides are another story... but at least to me it seems that people know their flat ride limitations better...

I pretty much have to agree with those statistics.

At SFOT we have pretty much the same procedures as the (good, not creepy water spraying) parks above.

First we put on food service (after all, it sort of is ;)) gloves and goggles. After that we spray bleach on the affected areas and then sprinkle a kitty litter type absorbent over the area. After that just sweep up/out what you can into a dustpan and put in a trash bag which needs to immediately go to a trash compactor. After that, (if on a ride) cycle empty and if it is severe enough, repeat.

We had a really bad 37-A (Vomit Cleanup) the other day at El Conquistador (Intamin Bounty) that covered the entire seat and the platform all the way to the exit ramp. We were code 2 (ride not operating) for about 30 minutes after that one, and we ended up keeping the seat closed for most of the day trying to get the absorbent out of it. It was a very interesting day, even before the power outage..but thats another story.

At Knoebels, we always disinfect the area and either wipe it up or hose it down, depending on how much there is. We then disinfect it again, and dry it. Everything we use to clean it up it then sent to First Aid, to prevent any more contamination (and get it the hell away from us!!)
This might be a bit of a shock, but in my experiance at least, vomit is the least common out of the two main ummm.....bodily fluids....fortunatly, its still MORE common than the ummm...solids (or not-so-solids, depending on whether or not they ate at the Alamo)....

At Dutch Wonderland we call for park services to come clean the ride. Meanwhile we get to stand at the entrance and tell people whatever BS we can come up with.

I think that Hersheypark is the same way.

I was at knoebels and some puked on the Galleon and the kid there was really friendly and told us what happened. Also he just got a bucket of water and rinced the puke into the center of the ship and operated it once. ewwww

I saw the same thing happen on Galleon at Knoebels during PPP weekend. The op just went and got a bucket of water, dumped it on the seat, and let the ride run empty. The water(and whatever else) was dumping out onto the walkway below. I'm certainly glad I wasn't walking there! *** Edited 10/19/2004 4:34:14 PM UTC by Sue***

thecoasterguy- That makes more sense when separating between coasters and flats.

So that's why the landscaping by the Galleon is so lush! I just hope that little episode happened in a different seat and after I was on the ride.

.....note to self....never ride the galleon again....

On Batman @ SFMM I saw some kid in row 7 get on that looked pretty weary, and didn't think much of it but let the people in back of us go ahead in line 8 to wait for our friends in row 7...So we could ride together (I generally hate that kinda "ride together" stuff...but we were with girls, so I think you could understand). When the train got back all 4 people in row 7 had some sort of puke on them, while the suckers behind them (where I was supposed to be sitting) basically got the same treatment. Even worse, when the kid got off, he threw up again all over the loading platform. His dad grabbed him to go sit by the benches (the ones near the Batman suit) and the poor kid was so feeble by then he whacked his shin on the corner of the bench, and then was crying about that too...Nonetheless, I think he's gonna be mentally scarred about Batman for a while.

Clean up crew grabbed a couple buckets with soapy water, splashed the seats down, sent a dry run, and toweled off the seats when the train got back...I then proceeded to wash my hands after the ride...yay...my puke story.

For SFGAm:

If its on the ground, sprinkle voban on it (saw dust weird smelly stuff), wait a couple minutes then sweep it up with a broom & butler.

If its on the ride, cycle the ride until everyone is off the ride. When that is done, hose off the affected area then use "Envy" disinfectant on the same areas. Clean the affected area off again then cycle that car/train one time before loading it.