Worker killed at Lake Compounce (UPDATED)

He could have been trimming under or near track, and left part of himself hanging in the train's way without realizing it.

I'm amazed he didn't feel it coming, if it was that close. Those trains shake the lumber pretty good.

My prayers go out to the family. According to the article, this is the 3rd accidental death at the park in 3 years. Not a good safety record!

As the number of rides increase, so will injuries. It just can't be avoided. How terrible to lose another.
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My condolences go out ot the family, as ground's keepers are generaly from a less affluent section of our society, I hope the rest of the family has enough to see them through. :(

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WARNING: Teenager engaing in free thought. His opinions may not agree with those preprogramed by society.

I can't imagine riding Boulder Dash and not thinking about this. Let alone going to the park. This is truly one of the sadest theme park tragedies in my opinion.

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Live to have FUN!

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Wow, how unfortunate. Thoughts and prayers go out to all of his close friends and family. I wonder exactly where he was standing when the train hit him. Directly on the tracks? On the walkway on the side of the tracks?

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When I read the story the first thing I thought was suicide. Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember a Great Adventure employee jumped to his death off Rolling Thunder many years ago. It doesn't specify what kind of hearing protection he was wearing, but if he was wearing the airplane type headphones his hearing was probably significantly reduced, especially while running the trimmer. Since I'm an audio engineer I always wear earplugs while mowing the lawn and it does reduce your hearing capacity. *** This post was edited by Intamin Fan on 6/14/2001. ***

Here is the story from the Hartford Courant. My local paper had a quote that said his arm was ripped off at the shoulder. I thought the track was pretty well elevated throughout the ride.
http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editorial.dll?eetype=Article&eeid=4728778&render=y&ck=&userid=1&userpw=.&uh=1,0,&ver=3.0

Man 3 deaths in 22 months that does not look good for this park. This looks like a crew got used to no one being near track's and sent the train through.

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Army rangers lead the way *** This post was edited by supermandl on 6/14/2001. ***

It amazes me that there were no lockout procedures for the ride. Relying on someone to come warn you is not a very safe way of protecting workers.

Some of you know that I worked at Cedar Point for several seasons as a landscaper. Locking out rides was preached from day one. Each employee was given a lock that only that person knew the combination to. When the ride was locked, there was no power, so the it could not be operated. And since only you knew the combination, only you could take it off. If you left the area without removing it, they would find you. If you went home without removing the lock, it would not be cut off unless they spoke with you first.

This has nothing to do with roller coaster safety. OSHA should be all over this. It's a workplace issue and poor safety will cause problems anywhere, whether it's at an amusement park or construction site.

I thought using locks was standard saftey procedures for amusement parks?

*** This post was edited by Gemini on 6/14/2001. ***

Still more details:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=1946436&BRD=1645&PAG=461&dept_id=10856&rfi=6

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Jeff
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I agree this has nothing at all to do with roller coaster safety. It's not surprising though that they talk about that though through the article. I believe it's the media's agenda to scare us, and not just about roller coasters. This is simply the case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel very bad for the family.

Man, how awful. I'll be praying for his family. I hope that Lake Compounce, at the very least, changes it's procedures to make sure that this type of thing never happens again. It's one of those preventable accidents, and that's what makes it so terrible.

Hopefully ALL parks will take a look at thier own procedures, as well, and use this tragedy as a positive.

That is to bad. It is sad to hear of these accidents! Hope the family is doing alright!

definetely sounds like neglegence on the operators part.
How sad.

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Ok, the ten second analysis:

We have a groundskeeper who was apprently assigned to trim weeds around the BoulderDash site.

Said groundskeeper was wearing sound protection against the sound of the weed trimmer, which probably did impair his hearing significantly.

Said groundskeeper was struck by roller coaster.

That's whats known.

As Gemini stated above, at the very least standard lock-out procedures should have been in place. Lock out is an inudstry standard means of protection against mechanical equipment.

Since the ride operated, obviously either

a) The groundkeeper did not lock out
b) Somone tampered with the groundskeepers lockout, either with a duplciate key, lockcutter, or the lock wasn't properly secured in the first place.

I cannot fathom any one tampering with another employee's lockout, so we'll assume he did not lock out. Whether that was an option available to him is unknown at this time.

Now let's put ourselves in the mindset of the young worker. "That ride never starts testing till 9, I'll only be here till 8:45, so I'll save myself 5 minutes and a walk to the mechanical room/control console and jump in here, trim the weeds and be out"

Unfortunately, the ride started testing early, but even if it did let's consider.

According to the newspaper article he was in fact underneath the tracks, in a vulnerable position, probably a position that he just couldn't step back from, the article also stated that he couldn't hear becuase of the ear portection for the weed trimmer, and was facing away from the train.

Which means, OSHA is gonna have a FIELD DAY with this one. Especially if the inference in the article is correct that there apparently was no lock out, and they relied on the rather ancient system of walking the ride and visually insecpting the site before startup. You can seea lot but you might miss a moving person who just may happen to always escape your glance. Especially if just like the groundskeepr, "No one is ever there, so I'll just run down and have a Coke and a smoke, then come back and start the ride"

There is also that mindset: "They won't send a train on me, SOMEONE else will look out for me, this can't really be happening"

Just from waht I know or am doing armchair investigating on (hey Harry Caulder didn't take a look at the Rocket or its demolished train either), I feel that this is a shamless tragedy that could have been easily prevented. No one should have to put their life on the line to go to work. Many prayers for the workers family and friends.

My condolences go out to the family. This was not a mechanical problem, just human stupidity on the part of the ride operators.

My thoughts go to the family of the worker who was injured. The problem really sounds like it goes out to the ride operators. Why are there so many coaster-related incidents occuring already?

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Any way you look at it, this is a tragedy not only for the family and friends but for the amusement world.

What's next>?!

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