Girl's legs severed: Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom

[halltd]

[quote=""Sazzle""]halltd, with all due respect concerning your excellent points, you're coming across particularly Intamin-fanboyish .[/quote]

As much as I like Intamin rides, I like B&M rides just as much. So, if you want to call me a fanboy, I'm a fanboy of all rides. But, that hasn't been my point. My point has been Intamin rides are just as safe as any other manufacturer. I was merely pointing out the flaws in other peoples' arguments saying that Intamin can't design a good restraint.

Also, your point about the general public and their view of Intamin is an interesting one. Maybe the general public hears Intamin whenever they hear about an accident. But, do you honestly think the general public knows what rides are manufacturer by Intamin? I bet they don't even know the difference between an S&S tower and an Intamin tower. They see something that goes straight up and down and assume it's the same thing.

So, I really don't think any manufacturer is hurt by things like this except when it comes to parks looking for ride manufacturers. But, I don't see the general public boycotting rides because they're made by a certain manufacturer.

[Sazzle]

[quote=""halltd""]But, do you honestly think the general public knows what rides are manufacturer by Intamin?[/quote]

Well yes.. When the media print things like this:

[quote=""Boston.com National News""]
Intamin AG, a Swiss company, made all the rides but did not supply all the parts, said Sandor Kernacs, president of the company's American operations, Intamin Ltd. in Glen Burnie, Md.[/quote]

[quote=""BBC News""]
The safety restraint was made by Swiss company Intamin AG, who also made the safety system for the Hydro ride at Oakwood. [/quote]

[quote=""Boston.com National news""]
...patrons visited Six Flags yesterday, many standing and gazing at the brightly painted red and blue Superman Ride of Steel coaster, still silent on its rails. According to the Six Flags's website, the coaster was manufactured by Intamin, whose website lists the company as being located in Liechtenstein in Europe.[/quote]

And God forbid somebody come across this page!
http://www.rideaccidents.com/intamin.html

My point is yes, people will pick up on the name regardless of whether they are aware Rita or Colossus are built by them. Its not hard these days to dive into Google with Intamin as a keyword and dredge up all the information I've posted here - I managed to find all those news articles in around ten minutes.

http://www.rideaccidents.com/ <-- a fair bit on the recent accident.

[halltd]

You're also an enthusiast. I guarantee you could poll 80% of the people in a park at any given time about the manufacturer of a ride and they'd give you a blank stare.

[Sazzle]

You're missing my point by a couple of hundred miles...

I'm trying to say that while the average Joe may not know that such-and-such is built by so-and-so, they will remember a name when its printed in the media. That's 3 articles I picked out concerning 3 different accidents but with the same name - Intamin. You're trying to tell me you wouldn't either A) remember the name or B) go and check it?

[halltd]

I would, sure. But I also know a lot about the situation, Intamin in general, what they make and where it is installed. What I'm trying to say is regardless if Intamin, B&M, Vekoma, etc... is printed in the paper, it doesn't affect the majority of park goers at all. Sure, right now, people MAY know Intamin makes rides at parks and one recently broke. I doubt they even know it's the same company that built other rides that have killed people.

The bigger thing here in the minds of the general public is the park. That's who they pay money to and plan trips around. In their minds, Six Flags has been tarnished. What they see on the news is a ride at Six Flags tore some poor girl's feet off. That's also all they'll remember in about a month. It may also come up later when they're planning a trip to an amusement park. If they see Six Flags as a park, they may remember the accident. I guarantee you they won't remember Intamin made the ride that broke.

[DanB]

And 6 months later she is walking again - http://www.wlfi.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... =menu591_3

[Chris1]

I wonder how much compensation she got......

[Sebastian]

That's an amazingly good recovery to such a horrific incident, it sickens me how parks like this can go without new cables for so long!

[Spike]

Update....

(1/15/08) So far from all but one e-mail I’ve received since yesterday, it seems that most of you agree with me that ride ops should be at least 18. After all… since your running a piece of heavy machinery with several riders under your control, wouldn’t it make sense that you would have to be the same age that you need to be to receive a Commercial Drivers License (CDL)? As I understand things, I believe you need a CDL pretty much anywhere in the country to drive a bus, limo or passenger shuttle.It just kind of makes sense to me that some of the same reasons you would want your shuttle driver to be at least 18 would apply to the same person running the ride your on.
But according to this latest article about the Kentucky Kingdom accident, the state of Kentucky has no such laws preventing 16 year olds from running a ride like Superman: Tower of Power and according to statements from the ride op, it sounds like they received very little other than basic training at all in her 2 to 3 weeks of employment prior to the accident. In fact, in those 2-3 weeks, she had never once even pushed an E-Stop button.
Interesting personal note from my own brief time as a ride operator… one of the first things they did to us in training at our ride was to make us push the E-Stop, even if the ride wasn’t running. Just to give you the experience of actually pushing the button… to feel what it was like to push it so that you wouldn’t have any hesitation to push it the instant you thought something might be wrong. We were taught that it was always better to err on the side of safety by E-Stoping the ride and restarting it rather than stand by and do nothing at all.
(1/14/08) Today we’ve got a link to a local news report where the 16 year old ride op who was working on the Superman: Tower of Power attraction during this past summer’s accident claimed that neither she or the other operator were able to hit the E-Stop button in time to do anything. This is despite the fact that in a deposition she did “hear something snap” as the cars climbed up the tower. On a ride like this, I’m surprised that the ride ops are stationed so far away from their E-Stops that they can’t push them in time to stop a problem like this. Given the nature of this kind of attraction, you would think that, similar to some other rides, they would be stationed stand at a specific post during the operational cycle of the ride (enforced by standing on a pressure pad that wont allow the ride to run unless they are in place) where the E-Stop would be right at hand.
I’ve also got to bring up a personal pet-peeve of my own when it comes to staffing rides. I know laws are different state to state, and the various policies are different company to company, but going back to what I experienced growing up in California as well as what I believe to be true in Florida, I think you should have to be 18 to run a ride. In my travels I’ve been to many parks and seen rides being run by what look like 15 year olds and I’ve got to admit, it does make me nervous at times since I know what I was like at 15, 16 and 17. I’ve worked at a park before… both under and over the age of 18 and we were not able to work the rides until we turned 18, both for legal reasons and as well as maturity reasons.
While I’ve never been one to back the idea of a federal oversight committee to oversee every little nook and cranny of theme park operations, I wouldn’t mind seeing a federal policy set in place to require ride operators to be at least 18 years old. Now this may cause some parks to panic when it comes to staffing levels, but honestly when your only paying your ride ops $5.15 a hour (what the Superman ride op made), what do you expect? Pay an appropriate wage and staffing wont be an issue. I made more than that when I turned 18 and went to work on a ride back in 1988… nearly 20 years ago.

Source Screamscape

What I find insane is that Intamin havn't found a saftey feature where the computer system knows there's been a cable snap and forces an E-Stop and the fact it's left to human's to push the E-stop button. Madness! and a 16 year old girl aswell, she shouldn't be oping a ride of this calabor.

[Green.Wing]

A interview with the girl who was involved was released today.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326886,00.html
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRaN ... wD8UGOTBO0

In a related bit of news, ive heard that the tests on the ride’s cables are now complete and have been released to the various parties involved, but not to the general public yet. From here, I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the case goes to court or if the document is damaging enough to Six Flags that they’ll attempt to settle the matter privately.