Park Ride Victim's Father: "She Was Dead" - Critical Condition - Freefall Net not Raised

[RamboLiberal]

A 12-year-old Florida girl is in critical but stable condition after falling more than 100 feet in an amusement park ride in Wisconsin. A safety net did not catch her.

Last Friday, Teagan Marti was looking for a thrill when she signed up for "Terminal Velocity," a freefall ride at Extreme World in Wisconsin Dells.

Teagan told her parents she wanted to do it after seeing the ride on a Travel Channel show. A person is raised to the top of a platform and then unhooked, free-falling at up to 52 miles per hour before, as the ride is designed, hitting the safety net below.

When Teagan was released, police say, the landing net was still fully on the ground. So when she hit, it did not break her fall.

The ride operator released the girl before the net was in place. In a statement to CBS News, the park said the accident was "caused by human error" and the ride operator is on "leave for mental health reasons."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/03/earlyshow/main6738986.shtml?tag=stack

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. Statements by the park iseems a bit at odds with each other

"caused by human error" and the ride operator is on "leave for mental health reasons."

So, was it a mistake? Or,mentally unstable to the point of causing harm by intent? Am sure there's more to all this, but the statements just seems conflicting and ambiguous to me.

I feel for that family, and even more so for the girl. Am hoping that the report of being stable means she will eventually fully recover.

[LisaL]

4. I take it to mean that he was so upset by what had happened

he left. "The mental health" reasons could be after the fact.

[SidDithers]

11. Yup. That's my interpretation as well...nt

Sid

[Whoa_Nelly]

16. Had initially thought that, too

but the way it's presented shows poor journalism. Sometimes brevity of written report raises more questions rather than offering clear information.

[Brickbat]

7. You'd think they'd put the person on leave for doing the job wrong, but I'm guessing they were

clumsily saying that the ride operator is devastated. I can't imagine what that person is going through.

[Recursion]

8. I read that as "nearly suicidal because he screwed up and killed a 12-year-old girl"

Not that he was some crazy dude they hired to run the ride.

[RamboLiberal]

14. She's not dead - in critical condition

[Statistical]

13. Knowing your are 100% completely responsible for potentialy killing another human...

tends to cause "mental health reasons".

I mean the concept of the "ride" is:
1) raise a net
2) raise person
3) release person
4) person falls into net.

This operator did
1) didn't raise net - didn't occur to him or her this would be make the ride fatal.
2) raised person - still didn't occur to anyone that net isn't raised thus person will plummet to their guaranteed death
3) release person - didn't check to see net STILL isn't raised
4) person falls to their death. From the point of release it was a guarantee the victim would die (on edit: or at least be seriously injured).

I mean the ride isn't rocket science or really that complex.
fall + net = scary
fall + no net = lethal

The key component being operators needs to raise the net which didn't happen.
If I was responsible for that yeah I think it "might" affect my mental health.

[Occulus]

21. .

Someone below bet me to it...

[LostinVA]

22. I take that to mean the operator is suicidal or something

For causing it to happen.

[still_one]

2. Sometimes parents need to say NO. I understand they thought the ride was "safe"

but that isn't the real world

[LisaL]

5. Well in this case the age of a person would not matter.

Would it be any different if the girl was 14? I don't think so.

[still_one]

18. A minor is still under their parents authority /nt

[LisaL]

19. So is a 14 year old.

I don't get your point.
If an adult was dropped 100 feet without a safety net in place, the same exact thing would happen.

[still_one]

26. My impression, which may be wrong , is the daughter asked her parents if she could go on

The ride, if that is the case, they were not aware of the risk I assume

Your point about physical effects on both adults and children I agree, and whether they should have such rides that exert such forces on people is a valid discussion

I was only commenting if the parents approved of the ride, they should have been more aware of the risk

[Old and In the Way]

3. Seems to me that this tragedy was completely avoidable.

There should have been safety interlock switches that won't allow the release of the ride until the net is in place. Making this an operator controlled release independent of the net deployment was asking for trouble...distractions or a simply case of the operator not paying attention/daydreaming happen and the manufacturer should have had these interlocks on their ride.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. +1 n/t

[LisaL]

9. Boggles the mind that the life of all the people taking this ride

apparently depends on whether some operator (how old is he, by the way?) is paying attention.

[dmallind]

12. Yep -sounds like an easy poka-yoke idiot-proofing miss.

What a shame it took something like this to point out what should have been obvious. It is hardly complex engineering to have an indictor that the net is deployed connected to a shutoff-switch for the release.

[Statistical]

15. In hindsight it is strange that such a system didn't exist.

I wonder if it was bypassed somehow.

Seems unlikely that a manufcaturer would open themselves up to that kind of liability. You know the manufacturer (as well as park) will be sued.

Most roller coaster will not "go" unless all seatbelts are down and locked. Doesn't matter what combination of buttons are pushed it simply will not go. I experienced the annoying flipside of that. The sensor on a coaster I was boarding malfunctioned. It indicated seat harness as not locked when it was. We sat there for 10 minutes while crew fiddled with it but it would not start the ride. Finally they had to have us deboard, remove that coaster from the track, load new coaster onto track, and resume ride.

[Old and In the Way]

25. Bypassing interlocks is always a possiblity.

Back in the 70's, I used to work in a machine shop and I ran a stamping machine. Back then, before the advent of photo-electric 'shadow curtins', they had 2 "Go" buttons that were required to be hit before that ram would downstroke. In theory, both hands would be outside the work area. But, if you taped up one, you could be getting the next part while using only 1 hand to activate the ram. Many did this as a way to increase piece rates and make extra money. Of course, sometimes that free hand might late getting out of the work area - I had a few close calls with getting my hand flattened by a 300 Ton press...

[Recursion]

17. The original formulation of Murphy's Law

"If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way."

In Murphy's case, he meant if two connectors were electrically incompatible, they need to be physically incompatible. The analogy to this case is pretty plain.

[Ignis]

24. But safety costs money. Why do you hate capitalism?

:sarcasm:

[qb]

10. Indisputable negligence. Wisconsin Dells will pay big time for this one.

[hamsterjill]

20. One ride must always top another

As these thrill rides become more and more dangerous, the thought of outcomes such as this young girl's situation, really scares me. I wish her well, and I feel badly for the operator of the ride.

Amusement parks are struggling to stay in business, and they must each try to "top" the other ones in order to have the biggest thrill rides to attract customers. It's getting out of hand. "Thrill" is one thing; "danger" is another.

[LostinVA]

23. I cannot believe that ride doesn't have a failsafe in regards to the net

No net, no release. WTF.

[Jennicut]

27. This is a video of Terminal Velocity. It would be really hard to miss the net not being in place

but still, relying on a person can be iffy. Human error happens every day in all kinds of situations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCB9zCHlVXA