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Woman dies after falling from rollercoaster

furie

furie

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Woman dies after falling from rollercoaster



A 21 year old woman has died after falling from a rollercoaster at Baton Rouge amusement park.

Lindsay Zeno was seen struggling to keep her restraint down on the Maurer Sohne spinning coaster "Xtreme".

She fell during the ride operation and was pronounced dead later at Baton Rouge hospital.

Inspectors can find no obvious reasons so far for the failure.

News Source:
http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=12788151

Please remember, while accidents do happen at theme parks and on rides, they're very rare and incidents like this should not put you off enjoying yourself on a day out.
 
divvie_dave said:
Sounds harsh..... but she is rather large....
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Yeah. The first thing that popped into my mind when I read this was the Superman accident a few years ago, and after seeing here, I'm willing to bet that this was the same problem; the restraints failed because she was too big. Guess we'll have to wait and see what they find.
 
Lapbars opening on these coasters isn't unheard of... But how you'd manage to fall from one is beyond me.

Also, if she's too large to ride then it's the parks fault for letting her ride. Not hers.
 
It shouldn't be forgotten that this coaster is getting on a bit. It used to be at Drievliet, and toured the German fairs before that. No, that shouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the safety of a ride, but... y'know!

Isn't there some regulation with these in the UK (or possibly just Merlin parks) about the number of "clicks" that the restraint needs to be fastened before they'll let you ride? From what I've heard this is by no means standard practice across the world. If this is done for proven safety reasons, then all parks with these rides should enforce it.

PS. I nearly forgot the obligatory "my thoughts are with her family" lipservice bollocks.
 
^I've not heard about the clicks thing, but your post reminded me...

At Tussauds/Merlin parks, they went in and out of fazes of controlling the rider weight on the MS spinners and mice. Why?

I had always assumed it was post DF's re-tracking of the base of the first drop incident to ensure whatever happened wouldn't happen again.
 
^Fury still has the max 3 adults rule... Never actually explained why but I assume it is due to the incident (not on the first drop though)...

Fury and Spinball both have arrows on their restraints to show the minimum amount the bars should be down to allow safe riding...
 
Nemesis Inferno said:
^Fury still has the max 3 adults rule... Never actually explained why but I assume it is due to the incident (not on the first drop though)...
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Well the base of the first drop was edited (and so was a spot near the end of the ride) is all I meant. Where did the incident actually occur?
 
^One of the break runs... I think the second one cos (as pointed out to me last year), you can see how badly unconnected it is... Though don't hold me completely to that, since it happened long before I worked on it :lol:

Yeah I thought you meant that the first drop had been redone due to the incident... My bad...
 
Ok, so I'm no expert, but if they've found nothing wrong with the ride ie. nothing wrong with the restraint that "failed", then doesn't that suggest, given the sheer size of the woman, that it wasn't fastened/checked at all?

It says in the article about finding the reason behind the accident being a "long and tedious process". Not really, if they stop being so **** ing PC about it and address the real issue: She was WAY too fat for the ride and shouldn't have been allowed on it.
 
Nemesis Inferno said:
^One of the break runs... I think the second one cos (as pointed out to me last year), you can see how badly unconnected it is... Though don't hold me completely to that, since it happened long before I worked on it :lol:

Yeah I thought you meant that the first drop had been redone due to the incident... My bad...
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We're prob talking about different incidents.

You're on about the stairs just falling off the ride?

I don't know for sure why the base of the first drop and that section towards the end was retracked, but I've heard rumors a few times about it being due to vibrations causing lapbar problems, but that no accident ever occured. (Probably because Chessington are on the ball and care about H&S/) I had assumed that cutting down rider weight was also a post-this precaution.

Whatever the reason for the re-tracking was, there must have been some kind of issue. It is the tallest one, still, isn't it? Maybe it was just under stress and showing age quickly?
 
sounds like her restraint wasn't properly checked...

also - check this section of the news report:

The incident was not the first at the park in which someone fell from a ride, but the victim survived last time.

A two-year-old boy broke his arms and legs when he fell from a ride four years ago.

According to the official investigation, Kobe Carter fell 25 feet from the "Over the Rainbow" ride on June 9, 2006.
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what the hell sort of park let's a 2 year old on such a ride?
 
Woah, that really is. :eek:

That last article clearly shows that there was an issue with the restraints on the ride, and perhaps that combined with the woman's larger size resulted in this tragedy?
 
Hmmmm...

Thing is with those restraints is that they're on a ratchet system... Therefore it will lock (to a degree depending on how far) when pulled down...

So yeah, the only thing that affects the seats under the spinners is a manual release bar... So yeah, I don't see much in the way of truth about that story, just jumping on the bandwagon there...

Also, I don't think Mauer Sohne know that loose restraints can exist...


EDIT - On reflection, there may have easily been a fault with the bar's ratchets... In which case it should've been taken off the track...
 
Hmmm - one of the other quotes on that link says:

When I finally found a partner and got on it, I noticed my restraint wasn?t as secure as my partner?s, so we locked arms and she helped me hold it down throughout the ride
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are they using cars with faulty restraints on the ride???
 
^Reading that, to me, just sounds like the rider was being paranoid. How many people have you ever seen someone panic because "my restraint is not locked!!!" when actually they're just a bit too big for one ratchet, but arguably a bit small for the one above? It happens all the time on B&M inverts, for instance. It sounds to me like that's all that has happened in the case above.
 
Sorry to add to the Necroposting, but I thought it's worth warning those of size that Dragon's Fury (and I assume Spinball) now operate a strict policy on how far the lapbar must be down, with markings on the bar which must at least align.

It seems almost impossible to judge will be "too big", as those with long legs are having problems too. Worth trying to sit with your feet crossed over if you do have long legs.

They are offering exit passes to anyone unable to ride, however, to compensate for a lack of a test seat. Not that test seats always work, because Colossus' is fairly useless for those with long legs as it doesn't have the restricting car around it.
 
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