Woman killed on Rye Playland ride

Posted | Contributed by supermandl

Three years after a 7-year-old girl was thrown to her death from the Mind Scrambler ride here at Playland Amusement Park, a supervisor of the ride was killed Friday night after she rode it without wearing a seat belt, Westchester County officials said Saturday. It was the third death recorded from accidents involving rides at the park since 2004. The supervisor, Gabriela Garin, 21, was thrown from one of the ride’s small cars after she boarded it at 9:30 p.m., the authorities said. County officials said riders told them that she appeared to be kneeling, not sitting, on her seat. The ride is enclosed in a tent and whips patrons around in a circle as they sit in cars that spin, as lights flash and music blares.

Related parks

Playland Park

it's hard to have sympathy for stupid people.

Yeah, I mean she was a supervisor on top of that, how is that model behaviour for other guests?

What is with this Scrambler? The ride operated problem-free for dozens of years... and without seatbelts even.... and we get two fatalities on the same ride within 3 years of each other.
*** This post was edited by john peck 7/1/2007 12:17:11 AM ***

The story on CNN says that she was helping to load one last set of riders before leaving for the night. The worker who showed up to run the ride after her started it before she left the ride area. You should probably reserve judgment until after all the details are out, which with today's news media, could be a while.

I don't recall ever seeing a Scrambler with seat belts. Was that a home grown installation following the first accident?

Sounds like an accident that could have been avoided.

Thoughts with the family - however that photo of them looks like something out of a TV Guide - very posed, but i'm sure it's not.

Rick.

Scrambler at Dorney has seatbelts.... fyi

"however that photo of them looks like something out of a TV Guide - very posed, but i'm sure it's not."

I thought that too! It's strange...

Text removed... PLEASE do not post full text of articles, link to them! We don't have the copyright for that. -Jeff

*** This post was edited by Jeff 7/2/2007 9:16:28 AM ***

A couple of things...

Another news report indicated that Gabriela was in fact on duty at the Scrambler at the time of the 2004 incident. This is a person who knows this ride very well, and knows the worst that it can do.

Also according to relevant news reports, the changes made to the ride after the 2004 incident included increased interior lighting, seat belts in the gondolas, and a second attendant. The story indicates that there was not a second attendant on duty at the time of this incident, and that Gabriela was in fact performing the duties of that second attendant, perhaps just helping out as she was going off-duty.

This starts to look like the operator started the ride prematurely, perhaps not knowing that someone else was loading riders, certainly having not circled the ride or taken a ready signal from the (non-existent) second operator.

This is about as senseless as an incident gets.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

In order to safely operate this, and similar rides it's IMPERATIVE to have two operators at all times, and dual dispatch buttons.

You must be logged in to post