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War amputee killed in fall from Ride of Steel

As already stated, the amputee should have known better, but the ride operators are just as much to blame. They shouldn't have even allowed him in the station. I don't know how Darien Lake works, but most parks give out exit passes to handicapped people. If this were the case, the park is to blame the most for ignoring Intamin's safety policies.

Also, before we can blame either company, we need to look at the engineering behind each ride. Is the reason why Intamin has had so many accidents due to the mechanics in a ride? Does B&M manufacture their rides (specifically their trains) with more simplicity/ease of maintenance? Or is it just the dynamics of the rides causing so many accidents?
 
Yeah, and not to mention whenever a cable sprays people or a wheel breaks on an Intamin, it's because the PARK hasn't followed the maintenance plan given out by Intamin, or have sourced the wrong equipment.

How in the HELL is that Intamin's fault?

This couldn't be LESS of Intamin's fault. They're entirely not to blame here. It's the park who don't have a leg to stand on (ha).
 
Part of the problem when it comes down to the maintenance is the fact that most parks outsource their spare parts as it is far cheaper than buying from the manufacturer. This doesn't ensure great quality control.
 
The way I see it is that minimum wage monkeys, most of whom are under 20 years old, should not be held responsible like many people seem to think they should be.

It should not be possible to make some of the mistakes which end in accidents. The reason you don't see these accidents with B&M is because the ride mechanisms won't allow for it to happen. It's not that only idiots work on Intamin coasters. Maybe B&M are the Apple of the coaster world and only their own manufactured parts work on them? I doubt it but, I don't know anything about the subject.

The people to be held responsible should be the parks themselves, or the ride manufacturers. Staff should be adequately trained and any staff found to not be taking health and safety seriously should be fired immediately. The problem is, they aren't. And it appears that maintenance really isn't taken as seriously as it at a lot of parks.

However, in this very specific case, Intamin have nothing to do with it. This is a park management issue, most likely. I highly suspect staff were not ever informed what to do with amputees (I wasn't when I worked at a park) in terms of whether they are allowed to ride or not. Common sense, blah blah, that's great - but people are stupid and the park management shouldn't take the risk.

Personally, I think if you cannot walk form the exit gate to the ride vehicle you should not ride a roller coaster. Because in the event of requiring an evacuation, you need to be reasonably able bodied. Regardless, the park should have sufficient regulations in place and staff should know exactly who can and cannot ride. I'm sure I've read somewhere that guests with prosthetic limbs should "ask a staff member" and I always thought to myself... staff are expected to JUDGE the safety of guests? Staff rarely have any common sense regarding simple things like the fact that my camera case is attached to my belt and asking me to take it off is as stupid as asking me to ride naked, let alone judging how well any particular harness will hold a rider in place if they are missing various body parts to various severity.

Park management's fault. The end.
 
This is sad, but personally, it's hard for me to feel sorry that it happened. The park staff and the man in question should both have known better and if they had used a little bit of common sense, this wouldn't have happened. Can he get a Darwin award for this?
 
^ How is it the guy's fault? He probably asked if he's safe to ride and if the staff say yes, why would you question? The amount of times I've seen people concerned about something on rides notify staff and the staff say it's all right and they just take their word for it. Why wouldn't they?
 
So its pretty clear that he had prostetic leg's on for the ride so the questions are simple... what are Intamins guidelines for this? it is their health and safety that the park follows, we talk about 3/4 limbs etc. but this guy had all 4 limbs even though 2 are detachable, If Intamin feels that this is safe then they are to blame, If they don't feel it is safe then it is the parks fault, Simple. There is no way it can be allowed to be at a ride-ops discretion.

On a side note, that would have been one **** up ride photo !!
 
^I'd have thought Intamin's guidelines would be simple: No real legs - No ride.

I don't think they could risk something like this happening more often. Prosthetic legs are securely attracted I'm sure (I'm no expert), but I'm pretty confident they aren't designed to hold the person's weight like they would have been here.

As far as I'm concerned, the guy was a bit of a moron and the staff should have had the sense to say no. If that was me, I think I'd take the 'don't discriminate' bollocking to stop something that was obviously a stupid idea.
 
^ That made me think if the guy had prosthetic legs and was wearing trousers the ride-ops may not have even known that he had no legs.
 
^Possibly, but then he's even more of a fool for thinking he could ride and not telling anyone.
 
Just an update for you all, Chosen segments from the ROS safety notice board.....

"For the restraint devices on this ride to fully and safely engage, guests MUST HAVE TWO LEGS and be within a certain range of size and physical dimension."

And.......

"No guests may ride holding anything or with ARTIFICIAL LIMBS ATTACHED."

So that puts Intamin in the clear, now over to you Darien Lake !!

EDIT: He was NOT wearing prostetic limbs during the ride.
 
marc said:
Mark and I were shocked once in Orlando.

When we got out on ride photo from Everest we noticed the guy behind us had no arms, in the UK they would not have been allowed to ride.
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One of the hardest things I had to do in my three years at 6FGAm, was one day when I was working the load side of Raging Bull and had to explain to a guy who had "incomplete" arms (Below the elbow, the forearm was only about 3-4 inches and rapidly tapered to what appeared to be a thumb at the end) that 6F policy stated that a disabled rider may only ride if he or she has three (or more) complete limbs, and that prosthetic limbs were considered complete limbs. I apologized, and said that as I was not an expert in his personal medical condition, if he did have any prosthetic limbs to use, he were to go obtain and put them on, that I would be more than willing to let him in through the exit gate without an additional wait.
He thought for a second, and said: "No problem, I'll just wait at the exit while my friend rides." (Or something like that.)

Later, at dinner, I learned from some co-workers that he had been allowed to ride at Superman, but was also denied at Jester (Top Spin).

Some of it is training (or lack thereof) some of it is simply that it can be a hard thing to tell a person with a severe disability that they cannot do a thing that they want to do, especially if you're "just a kid" working at the local park for the summer.

The Mouse trains the hell out of the employees there, and those rides are pretty tame compared to the typical 6F/CF stuff, even the "E-ticket" rides. I'm guessing that no-legs, doesn't get on Everest, but no-arms is OK.

(Oh, yeah. At our Deja Vu, the station roof had dents in it where a small number (2 or 3) of prosthetic limbs had "come free" and come crashing down. LOL! )
 
Well no arms for a lapbar coaster = fine imo, but I'm not sure. I'd have to check. I don't see why arms would matter though. Maybe it's to do with the fact that you're supposedly supposed to hold onto these things?
 
Joey, I remember Minor_furie's first ride on the Nash and I had to physically grab him at one point as he was coming right out of the car, I think Ian did too on Big Dipper. The belt may have caught him, but he must have been almost a foot out of his seat (he was almost head to head with me).

If he was older, he may have grabbed on, without arms he couldn't have done.

Also, the brakes on Lisebergbanan are horrendous. First ride I hurt my wrists and banged my head as I wasn't ready for it at all. Again, lack of arms could mean a head injury in case of a sudden stop. As you said earlier, it's all about those "what ifs". A ride shouldn't stall or get stuck and need evacuating, but if it does, then you need a person to be ambulant to get off it (or be small enough to be carried by a helper).

I think rollermonkey is spot on, there's a degree of embarrassment a lot of people would feel over stopping somebody (sorry to stereotype, but especially a "war hero" in the US) from doing somethnig they really want to, something fun and uplifting like a rollercoaster. Common sense quickly flies out of the window rather than face the confrontation.

Maybe Intamin should have the "limbless seat" - like B&M's fatboy seats, a padded cage around one seat to let disabled riders enjoy?
 
Here is another reason why they should not be allowed to ride really.

If they have to evac the ride, how would you get someone down the steps with no legs or hold on to the rails with no arms?

Every country has different rules, in the UK they would not have been allowed to ride. Disney parks would allow it as we have seen it.
 
I used to go to parks with a lad who couldn't use his legs (they were withered). My first time using disabled passes and we used to carry him on to the rides. The reason the disabled passes allow for a "helper" is so that they can assist in the evacuation. In this case, it would have meant lifting him off the coaster and carrying him down. As long as everyone is harnessed safely (which they should be), then I can't see the really issue.

Certainly much easier doing that off Nemesis or air than to get me off the top of The Big One :lol:
 
The rule used to be minimum of 2 helpers for non-ambulant guests whilst any other disabled guests requried one helper...

They've changed them a bit at the Merlin ones so no idea what they're like now... But generally I think this is a case of lax operating standards about possibly one of the most important rules in regards to disabled guests...
 
EDIT: He was NOT wearing prostetic limbs during the ride.
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That is quite ridiculous really. The whole thing is **** up really, yes the park are to blame, but he should have used his common sense too.

Jus think of how horrific this must have been to witness?
 
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