The World's Most Dangerous Amusement Park
The global amusement park industry is big business and in the United States alone amusement park
revenues will likely top out over twenty two billion dollars for the year 2019. Every year around the world, more than 270 million people will visit an amusement park but visiting an amusement park always carries a tiny amount of Grist .Last year out of those 270 million people who visited a park about 7,000 of them experienced some kind of injury that required an emergency room visit or really tiny 0.0025 percent of everybody who went .The safety standard of modern amusement parks is very high .Between 1990 and 2004 only three to four people died on average per year across every part in America combined. However one amusement park in particular stands out from every other part in American history and its name was action Park .
Located here in Vernon New Jersey the park experienced an insanely high six separate fatalities experienced by people riding their rides over its existence. Besides those six deaths though an untold number of people experienced traumatic injuries .A local emergency room reported that they would receive anywhere between five and ten people who experienced injuries at the park every day over the weekends. And had got so bad that the park pays to have some ambulances on call at the park ready to take people there on a moment's notice. So what was it that made the park so dangerous and possibly life-threatening to visit. A lot of things, but let's start off with some of the more ridiculous rides that you could experience. The first ride ever opened at the park was the Alpine Slide .A ridiculous winding chute made of the world's three safest materials to fall on while at fast speeds concrete, fiberglass and asbestos.You would ride down this thing in a sled ,with no harness tying you down and only a lever to control the two different speeds.Snails slow or suicide speed, nobody wore helmets and a lot of people would ride in their bathing suits ,a perfect recipe for a great time.Between just 1984 and 1985 this ride alone experienced 26 separate cases of head injuries and 14 cases of broken bones. The first fatality in the park happened on this ride as well. When an employee riding down ,a sled flew off the track at a sharp turn and hit his head on a rock which killed him .Apparently this would happen a lot, so the park just placed hay bales around these sharp turns to try and push in people's falls in the future.
But if you were looking to get hurt ,action park offered up a much more varied experience to select from than just this. Perhaps the most insane ride that the park ever created was a slide with a friggin loop inside of it. It looks pretty cool but physics doesn't always agree with what looks cool. You go in at the top feet first ,slide all the way down like normal until you reach the base of the loop. You'd then go up leg first at an awkward angle and get flipped upside down ,where gravity would do one of a few things. You'd either hit and grind your face across the slides bottom which would give you at best a bloody nose then when you fall back down the other side you might smash your back against the slide wall and cause you some gnarly back pain. Then you'd slide out at the end a bruised and bloodied idiot. The other thing that might happen to you is getting stuck at the top of the loop. If the water pressure wasn't strong enough which would it be great for those of you who might feel a little claustrophobic.
revenues will likely top out over twenty two billion dollars for the year 2019. Every year around the world, more than 270 million people will visit an amusement park but visiting an amusement park always carries a tiny amount of Grist .Last year out of those 270 million people who visited a park about 7,000 of them experienced some kind of injury that required an emergency room visit or really tiny 0.0025 percent of everybody who went .The safety standard of modern amusement parks is very high .Between 1990 and 2004 only three to four people died on average per year across every part in America combined. However one amusement park in particular stands out from every other part in American history and its name was action Park .
Located here in Vernon New Jersey the park experienced an insanely high six separate fatalities experienced by people riding their rides over its existence. Besides those six deaths though an untold number of people experienced traumatic injuries .A local emergency room reported that they would receive anywhere between five and ten people who experienced injuries at the park every day over the weekends. And had got so bad that the park pays to have some ambulances on call at the park ready to take people there on a moment's notice. So what was it that made the park so dangerous and possibly life-threatening to visit. A lot of things, but let's start off with some of the more ridiculous rides that you could experience. The first ride ever opened at the park was the Alpine Slide .A ridiculous winding chute made of the world's three safest materials to fall on while at fast speeds concrete, fiberglass and asbestos.You would ride down this thing in a sled ,with no harness tying you down and only a lever to control the two different speeds.Snails slow or suicide speed, nobody wore helmets and a lot of people would ride in their bathing suits ,a perfect recipe for a great time.Between just 1984 and 1985 this ride alone experienced 26 separate cases of head injuries and 14 cases of broken bones. The first fatality in the park happened on this ride as well. When an employee riding down ,a sled flew off the track at a sharp turn and hit his head on a rock which killed him .Apparently this would happen a lot, so the park just placed hay bales around these sharp turns to try and push in people's falls in the future.
But if you were looking to get hurt ,action park offered up a much more varied experience to select from than just this. Perhaps the most insane ride that the park ever created was a slide with a friggin loop inside of it. It looks pretty cool but physics doesn't always agree with what looks cool. You go in at the top feet first ,slide all the way down like normal until you reach the base of the loop. You'd then go up leg first at an awkward angle and get flipped upside down ,where gravity would do one of a few things. You'd either hit and grind your face across the slides bottom which would give you at best a bloody nose then when you fall back down the other side you might smash your back against the slide wall and cause you some gnarly back pain. Then you'd slide out at the end a bruised and bloodied idiot. The other thing that might happen to you is getting stuck at the top of the loop. If the water pressure wasn't strong enough which would it be great for those of you who might feel a little claustrophobic.
This apparently happened to so many people.So that the park installed a hatch at the top of the loop
to rescue people who experienced it .Evidently the slide was only open for a month in 1985 before an official advisory board ruled the ride to be unsafe and forced the park to close it down. Which is a shame because who doesn't want to experience taking their enemies to a park claiming that it's all
just for fun, when you really just plan on sending them down a death slide ,that you didn't tell them about beforehand. Surprisingly nobody ever died on the loop but there were plenty of other rides that I guess didn't seem as deadly at first. The deadliest of all of them was the wave pool which eventually got the nickname of the grave pool. It was pretty deep and blasted high waves across it for 20 minutes at a time .Up to a thousand people at a time were allowed inside of the pool, a good percentage of whom came from urban New York City and didn't really know how to swim very well. Over the parks existence three people drowned inside of the pool despite there being twelve lifeguards on duty at all times. For reference a typical lifeguard will save around one or two people over an entire regular season at a lake or a pool at the grave pool though the lifeguards were rescuing up to 30 people over just a weekend sometimes. It was insane but the madness didn't end there.
Oh no we're still just getting started ,another water ride at the park that claimed the life was the kayak experience. An imitation whitewater course that submerged electric fans below to agitate the water above in experienced kayakers who were many would frequently dip their canoes over and once such guy that this happened to stepped on a metal grate beneath the water that was connected to an exposed live wire which electrocuted and killed him .Another incident happened at the so called Tarzan swing where guests would swing out over a rope and jump into a pool below. The problem was the water in the pool was generally kept glacier cold and would often shock people who landed. An older man who fell in was so shocked by the cold that had induced a heart attack and killed him. It didn't help that most of the employees who worked at the park and were responsible for ensuring bright safety where teenagers are worse under age as young as 15 or 14 ,in some cases these children were operating the rides in several instances and access to alcohol for minors was very rarely enforced .Leading to situations where both underage employees and guests were simultaneously intoxicated .Most of the rides were poorly designed by people who didn't exactly have a very great grasp on physics or engineering like the bumper boats ride where the boats frequently need gasoline onto their occupants and where the cockpits were too small for tall people to fit inside of. So they would be forced to rest their legs outside on the sides of the boats which was a less than ideal situation when arrival boat would bump into them and smash their leg often causing fractures or broken bones.
The park frequently violated New Jersey state law by failing to report accidents and they even operated an entire year without insurance. Their insurance premiums became so high because of the huge number of incidents, that the park decided that it would be more economical to just operate without it and settle. Their accidents that happened in courts but the lawsuits and accidents that gave the park it's memorable nicknames like traction park and class-action Park were beginning to mount an expense. Between 1983 and 1985 there were around 200 lawsuits filed against the park more shocking than that though is the number of fines that the park received during this same period. Between the parks entire existence up until 1986 the park had been fined by the state government of New Jersey exactly once for $300 for operating a ride without a permit. The last New Jersey state regulations at the time certainly contributed to a lot of the danger at the park but the lawsuits continue to cripple the park .Anyway more and more rides were forced to be dismantled and closed in the 1990s as more and more of the lawsuits were settled .To the point where eventually in 1996 action park filed for bankruptcy and finally closed its doors. So if you ever go to a park in the future and you see a water slide like we discussed above maybe take some Advil or just don't get on it in the first place.
to rescue people who experienced it .Evidently the slide was only open for a month in 1985 before an official advisory board ruled the ride to be unsafe and forced the park to close it down. Which is a shame because who doesn't want to experience taking their enemies to a park claiming that it's all
just for fun, when you really just plan on sending them down a death slide ,that you didn't tell them about beforehand. Surprisingly nobody ever died on the loop but there were plenty of other rides that I guess didn't seem as deadly at first. The deadliest of all of them was the wave pool which eventually got the nickname of the grave pool. It was pretty deep and blasted high waves across it for 20 minutes at a time .Up to a thousand people at a time were allowed inside of the pool, a good percentage of whom came from urban New York City and didn't really know how to swim very well. Over the parks existence three people drowned inside of the pool despite there being twelve lifeguards on duty at all times. For reference a typical lifeguard will save around one or two people over an entire regular season at a lake or a pool at the grave pool though the lifeguards were rescuing up to 30 people over just a weekend sometimes. It was insane but the madness didn't end there.
Oh no we're still just getting started ,another water ride at the park that claimed the life was the kayak experience. An imitation whitewater course that submerged electric fans below to agitate the water above in experienced kayakers who were many would frequently dip their canoes over and once such guy that this happened to stepped on a metal grate beneath the water that was connected to an exposed live wire which electrocuted and killed him .Another incident happened at the so called Tarzan swing where guests would swing out over a rope and jump into a pool below. The problem was the water in the pool was generally kept glacier cold and would often shock people who landed. An older man who fell in was so shocked by the cold that had induced a heart attack and killed him. It didn't help that most of the employees who worked at the park and were responsible for ensuring bright safety where teenagers are worse under age as young as 15 or 14 ,in some cases these children were operating the rides in several instances and access to alcohol for minors was very rarely enforced .Leading to situations where both underage employees and guests were simultaneously intoxicated .Most of the rides were poorly designed by people who didn't exactly have a very great grasp on physics or engineering like the bumper boats ride where the boats frequently need gasoline onto their occupants and where the cockpits were too small for tall people to fit inside of. So they would be forced to rest their legs outside on the sides of the boats which was a less than ideal situation when arrival boat would bump into them and smash their leg often causing fractures or broken bones.
The park frequently violated New Jersey state law by failing to report accidents and they even operated an entire year without insurance. Their insurance premiums became so high because of the huge number of incidents, that the park decided that it would be more economical to just operate without it and settle. Their accidents that happened in courts but the lawsuits and accidents that gave the park it's memorable nicknames like traction park and class-action Park were beginning to mount an expense. Between 1983 and 1985 there were around 200 lawsuits filed against the park more shocking than that though is the number of fines that the park received during this same period. Between the parks entire existence up until 1986 the park had been fined by the state government of New Jersey exactly once for $300 for operating a ride without a permit. The last New Jersey state regulations at the time certainly contributed to a lot of the danger at the park but the lawsuits continue to cripple the park .Anyway more and more rides were forced to be dismantled and closed in the 1990s as more and more of the lawsuits were settled .To the point where eventually in 1996 action park filed for bankruptcy and finally closed its doors. So if you ever go to a park in the future and you see a water slide like we discussed above maybe take some Advil or just don't get on it in the first place.
Hope you like our article.Thank you and have a nie day.
No comments