Jeffrey P. Stoneking
"Thrill rides are becoming kill rides."
From design flaws to cover-ups when deadly accidents occur, the squeaky-clean image of theme parks is plagued with circumstances park officials and ride manufacturers prefer the general public not be informed of. Theme Park Safety Failure$ sheds a glaring beacon of light on issues and incidents that riders and attendees should be made fully aware of--that their lives are at an even greater risk than ever before.
Since theme parks are constantly competing against one another with higher, bigger, and faster installations, safety issues are being totally disregarded with virtually no time for error. The operating staff members are in most cases minors, while some facilities often utilize volunteers of non-profit organizations to man the ride platforms.
This is the ride that will make you pray. Step right up!
Jeffrey P. Stoneking is a former maintenance after-hours assistant and ride operator with the Walt Disney Company, as well as a veteran rider. He is a resident of Centerville, Ohio and attends Antioch University’s Yellow Springs, Ohio campus. Discover more park-related circumstances in his recently-released adventurous autobiography, Reality Therapy: The Influence of Rollercoasters, Religion, and Rock ‘n Roll. The Bat is from Kings Island's defunct rollercoaster of the same name.
In no way is this book intended to be an exploitation of an industry insistent on providing multi-million dollar salaries to its CEOs while competing with higher, bigger, and faster installations. Its purpose is to awaken the general public and the 253 million worldwide attendees1 by making them fully aware that visiting a theme park facility is placing their lives at risk.
Many amusement ride operators are technically unskilled in providing a safe experience. The governing computer systems are solely entrusted to operate the industrial machinery which can and does indeed take lives if not handled responsibly. A manufacturer’s oversight in design flaws are proven deadly, as well.
Park administrative decisions to reduce or eliminate preventive maintenance programs altogether is becoming commonplace. The cause stems from combined efforts to provide for escalating salary figures, insurance premiums, intellectual property ownership residuals, skyrocketing installation and operating costs, along with slick advertising campaigns. Frivolous and legitimate lawsuits, the fees associated, and trial awards are another contributing factor to those thoughtless abridgements.
My theme park employment experiences with Kings Island outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, along with Florida’s Walt Disney World complex and California’s Disneyland exposed me to accidents ranging from common slip-and-trips, to dismemberment, and death. Each incident was isolated and never the equipment’s error, but rather the ignorant paying participant’s foolish behavior. All except the death where a senior suffering with a heart attack was in an elevated, single-file, congested queue line far too narrow to allow any prompt, immediate access. The man stood clutching his chest in the blazing tropical heat trapped amidst screaming and panicking by-standers. A wider queue might have saved him, but a likely budget cut during the initial planning and construction kept the ever-so modern passageway themed accordingly.
A family outing to a theme park facility should not include suffering with an injury or death. Attractions are now exceeding launch speeds of 120 mph in three seconds’ time and vertically travelling heights of 46 stories. Some even perilously hang and rotate their riders almost as high as the Empire State Building, 900 feet above the ground. Others expose riders to G-forces near-equivalent to astronaut training. Park officials are always insisting that safety is their “number one priority”, yet to hear and read their remarks of the same nature after an accident occurs seems contradictory.
The unexpected tragedy happens in a matter of split seconds. Certainly riders rotating ten stories up around a central column at 35 mph in colorful six-seater bi-planes suspended from lengthy cables didn’t anticipate a drive motor slamming to an abrupt stop allowing the planes and their inertia-moving cables to entangle with one another. Some planes were facing straight up and others straight down waiting for a rescue unit to salvage the motionless, dangling mess. Fortunately all riders survived and remained in tact with only a lap bar restraint securing them to the seat. The rescue effort, however, took hours.
Thankfully I never saw the recorded local Atlanta network’s newsreel footage or knew of the incident until after I climbed aboard for my exhilarating, but white-knuckle high-flying experience. The ride was eventually removed in its entirety.
Another cable-related incident occurred on a Daytona Boardwalk pay-per-ride attraction, The Screamer, whose structure is comprised of two metal, almost vertical towering spires and a two-seater apparatus. Bungees are connected to the sides of the seats which are hooked to the ground for loading and unloading purposes. When the ride begins the bungees are stretched tight as high as the spires with their attached cables winding onto a drive shaft within the spires’ bases. A release triggers the seats to launch upwards, beyond the top of the spires, 15-stories up, flipping around like a tossed coin until the momentum ceases, then the seats lower back to the ground.
On the night of July 21st, 2000, one of the ride’s cables snapped. The seating arrangement holding two teenage sisters was flung into a tower three times. One of the girls grabbed onto the tower while a vacationing EMT climbed up five stories to their temporary rescue, tying the bungee and the seats to the tower preventing them from falling. It took the local rescue units more than an hour to bring them down safely. All in the helpless, watchful view of their parents, relatives, and curious spectators.
Neither the state inspectors nor the owner could explain what went wrong. The state inspector for the Bureau of Fair Ride Inspections, a division of the Florida State Department of Agriculture, Izzy Rommes, remarked that most people are afraid of the bungees snapping despite their strength. “They are made from the same material that holds up your underwear,” he said.2
Snapping isn’t limited to cords or cables. Bolts break, as well.
Michigan’s Adventure in Muskegon, MI learned a valuable lesson in the unexpected when a ride rolled to a stop outside and away from its secured platform position.
Chaos is a circular ride manufactured by the renowned and well-established Chance of Wichita, Kansas. It is a wheel-like design resting horizontal to the ground with its vehicles hanging from hinges on the perimeter facing outwards. Riders are paired and secured with a double harness, one over-the-shoulder to secure the upper torso with another bracing the lower extremities.
The ride begins to rotate with the vehicles travelling in a sideways motion. Its center then elevates to a near-vertical position constantly spinning, flinging the vehicles upwards and outwards. A release is activated and the riders, while still travelling sideways with the motion of the wheel, flip, roll, and rock forwards and backwards on their own individualized hinges. After slightly more than a minute, the dizzying device is gradually lowered to its starting position.
The loosening, bending, then fracturing of bolts sent the wheel rolling off its elevating central hydraulic support arm and onto the midway. When it finally landed, most of the vehicles were facing upwards. Others pinned its occupants face first to the ground trapping them for nearly five hours.3
Maintenance admitted to the state inspectors during the investigation that they never checked the integrity of the bolts with a wrench. Only with their eyes.4
