Some of the stupidest guest tricks often land the person in the hospital as well. ANyone out there have tales of blood and gore concerning guests?
I was working at BTM the night a romanian guy lost his hat on the ride, went back in for it and got smacked by a train on the bridge right before the dino pool. He laid on the bridge and bled on trains and passengers as they passed underneath.
The next morning (gotta love them double shifts) another cast member and I were forced to wash the blood off the trains in the back with that high pressure hose.
Let's hear some stories from you guys and make this an active subsection of the board!!
:pbjtime: <-------The Official Mascot of Attractions chit-chat
Blood and Gore!
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techie-13
- Seasoned Pro
- Posts: 537
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2003 12:32 pm
- Location: Former Paramount Parks Employee
Well, this was pretty well publicized and it happened after I left the park, but we had an incident very similar to Weeble's.
A guy was riding Top Gun (a suspended coaster that allows the riders' legs to dangle as they ride) and lost his hat on the first drop. After getting off the ride, he went through a gate with a sign saying "Great America Cast Members Only" and then climbed over a 6ft. tall locked fence into part of the ride area. The train came down the first drop and if he had laid on the ground all sorts of problems could have been avoided. Instead he was hit and killed as the legs of a woman on the train slammed into him. The woman's leg was shattered and since it happened at the beginning of the ride, she went through about a minute of having multiple G-forces yanking on that leg. The first clue that ride ops. had that anything was wrong was when the train came into the station.
The family of the guest that was killed then turned to a lawyer and sued the park on the grounds that the guy only spoke spanish and the signage on the gate he went through and the fence he climbed over were only in English and therefore the park was at fault for not warning him properly not to enter the ride area.
A guy was riding Top Gun (a suspended coaster that allows the riders' legs to dangle as they ride) and lost his hat on the first drop. After getting off the ride, he went through a gate with a sign saying "Great America Cast Members Only" and then climbed over a 6ft. tall locked fence into part of the ride area. The train came down the first drop and if he had laid on the ground all sorts of problems could have been avoided. Instead he was hit and killed as the legs of a woman on the train slammed into him. The woman's leg was shattered and since it happened at the beginning of the ride, she went through about a minute of having multiple G-forces yanking on that leg. The first clue that ride ops. had that anything was wrong was when the train came into the station.
The family of the guest that was killed then turned to a lawyer and sued the park on the grounds that the guy only spoke spanish and the signage on the gate he went through and the fence he climbed over were only in English and therefore the park was at fault for not warning him properly not to enter the ride area.
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techie-13
- Seasoned Pro
- Posts: 537
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2003 12:32 pm
- Location: Former Paramount Parks Employee
Okay, so since no one else is posting on this topic, I'll tell another story.
I didn't post this one before because even though it was a stupid guest trick, one of the boys died.
Way back in July of 1989, we had two pre-teen brothers on our log flume ride that we riding by themselves. There were other folks in the log with them but no one they knew. The younger brother got scared as they were going along the trough and coming up to the lift that takes you up about 72ft where you cruise along in another trough before the log goes down the chute (just like a water slide). Anyway the older brother told the younger one that they would jump out and proceded to do it. The younger one went to follow but while he was standing to jump, the log hit the conveyer belt of the lift and jerked, causing him to fall into the water where it is deepest before the lift and became trapped under the next oncoming log. The lift operator seeing this, hit the E-stop on the lift and rushed down the stairs to try and free the kid. When the system sensed the lift stopped, it stopped the other portions of the ride (except the pumps which were shared with another flume ride) to prevent backup. The grouper position's job in a downtime is to go to the base of the large lift and talk to guests so they don't climb out of the logs. She did that as the loader was on the phone to Station 1 (kind of a dispatcher/ control center for mechanics, security, & first aid). The grouper came running back into the station screaming "Hit All Stop! Hit All Stop!" (All Stop shuts down everything, turntable, lifts, chute gates & PUMPS. It usually only gets used at the end of the night.) The loader was trying to call for mechanics and suddenly found himself calling for EMS. I had gone to talk to some guests on the small lift just outside of the station when the grouper came and grabbed my hand and dragged me as fast as we could run to the larger lift. Mechanics and our first aid were pulling up as fast as they could and almost running over the guests that were being taken out of the logs on the lower trough in an effort to try and shove the logs backward. I gathered as many of the guests as I could in an area out of the way and then when I had most of them, took them back to the station. After that I was sent home since my shift was actually over and I was only going down to the station to retrieve my jacket before signing out. I do know that they had the boy out from under that log in under 6 minutes and they were doing CPR on him all the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, he was pronouned DOA.
The ride was closed for a day and a half. They instituted a height requirement on the ride for children riding alone and set up a hut at the base of the lift to watch for anyone who might try jumping out of the ride.
I didn't post this one before because even though it was a stupid guest trick, one of the boys died.
Way back in July of 1989, we had two pre-teen brothers on our log flume ride that we riding by themselves. There were other folks in the log with them but no one they knew. The younger brother got scared as they were going along the trough and coming up to the lift that takes you up about 72ft where you cruise along in another trough before the log goes down the chute (just like a water slide). Anyway the older brother told the younger one that they would jump out and proceded to do it. The younger one went to follow but while he was standing to jump, the log hit the conveyer belt of the lift and jerked, causing him to fall into the water where it is deepest before the lift and became trapped under the next oncoming log. The lift operator seeing this, hit the E-stop on the lift and rushed down the stairs to try and free the kid. When the system sensed the lift stopped, it stopped the other portions of the ride (except the pumps which were shared with another flume ride) to prevent backup. The grouper position's job in a downtime is to go to the base of the large lift and talk to guests so they don't climb out of the logs. She did that as the loader was on the phone to Station 1 (kind of a dispatcher/ control center for mechanics, security, & first aid). The grouper came running back into the station screaming "Hit All Stop! Hit All Stop!" (All Stop shuts down everything, turntable, lifts, chute gates & PUMPS. It usually only gets used at the end of the night.) The loader was trying to call for mechanics and suddenly found himself calling for EMS. I had gone to talk to some guests on the small lift just outside of the station when the grouper came and grabbed my hand and dragged me as fast as we could run to the larger lift. Mechanics and our first aid were pulling up as fast as they could and almost running over the guests that were being taken out of the logs on the lower trough in an effort to try and shove the logs backward. I gathered as many of the guests as I could in an area out of the way and then when I had most of them, took them back to the station. After that I was sent home since my shift was actually over and I was only going down to the station to retrieve my jacket before signing out. I do know that they had the boy out from under that log in under 6 minutes and they were doing CPR on him all the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, he was pronouned DOA.
The ride was closed for a day and a half. They instituted a height requirement on the ride for children riding alone and set up a hut at the base of the lift to watch for anyone who might try jumping out of the ride.