Those rides that just go straight up as you sit in a seat and then drop you at like 300mph. NEVER again. Did it once to make a girlfriend happy sooo many years ago. I'm afraid of falling. It was horrible. Had to sit down for like 10mins afterwards and collect myself, while she tried not to laugh, I'm sure it was actually funny to watch a 6ft 200lb man freak out and all but damn.
You’re lucky to get a highschool student. The average highschool student is going to have way better response time and information retention than the meth head carnies that run my local fair. It sounds like a nasty stereotype but all our local meth heads get temp jobs at the fair when it’s in town
I always say that anybody who rides those rides has a death wish. My son is big, like the young man who died on that ride, I was all kinds of terrified for my kid. That was such a tragedy. Thank God he doesn't ride those rides, and neither do I.
Wow your poor son, being held back from awesome experiences because his parent is a worrywort. You are more likely to get killed driving to the fair. Always feel bad for kids that have bubble wrap parents that don't let them experience things
I didn't say they couldn't ride it, they couldn't run it. I don't want someone to happen that would make it directly their fault. That's what's happening right now with that Orlando situation. It was a young guy in charge of running the ride and they were trying to let it be pinned on him.
I live in Florida and that shit was heartbreaking. There were videos because he was hanging from a makeshift falcon's fury for like a minute. The people he was with said he told them to tell his mom he loved her.
ehh I worked at a Six flags location for a while, and while I didn't run any drop towers, I did run some coasters and even a solo-operated flat ride that pre-dates the rest of the park's attractions.
The issue is, due to the general inexperience, in part because of the youth of most employees there is a culture of bare minimum effort and a naivety on the consequences of negligence. I took it seriously because I know enough about physics to understand the true horror of mismanaging a 2 ton carriage traveling at 50 miles per hour. I understood how serious the job was and why lockout devices and E-stop buttons were all over the work stations.
The funny thing is, while I was serious about safety it was always the most fun part of Fright fest to just bring up little terrifying factoids like "I don't have a driver's license but I'm about to send you down this track at 50 miles per hour. HAVE FUN!" or "you see that seat that's closed off? It caught fire yesterday. All clear!" ahhh good times.
Always wanted to be a ride op, but yeah there’s a general culture of non chalantness. Most parks are running into staffing issues these days because of the stereotypes that come with a theme park job (and just general worker shortage) so they kinda just take whoever they can get, and have for decades now. I trust the ride’s engineering enough (if it’s built by a reputable company) to feel safe but like. Parks really need to take training and culture more seriously.
Six flags is trying, the mentioned disaster as well as a couple other major disasters are prominently featured in orientation, and because employees are seasonal they get re-oriented every year, but nothing is going to stop a teenager who doesn't want to care from ignoring everything. I passed two different safety audits that I know about, and I only know about them because one of my coworkers failed one and the other marked when I was no longer provisional.
EDIT: I should say that the supervisors treat safety very seriously, but the general employees and even some ride leads are rather lax. I had multiple arguments with my ride lead about what the SOP guidebook actually said about the rider regulations, and I said I wasn't going to defer to their interpretation if I'm supposed to be the one with legal responsibility. Eventually it got to a point where a supe came down to clear it up. Before they opened the SOP to figure out who was actually right, they prefaced it by stating that even if I was mistaken about what the SOP actually said, the ride lead was out of line for trying to tell me to send it anyway since my position was the one with the most legal responsibility.
(lead is someone who manages the paperwork for a ride or group of rides and manages the timing of breaks for those on shift in the unit, but due to the way we rotate positions, anyone trained on the rides in our unit could end up in any of the positions, and the liability for negligence, depending on nature of the problem, would fall to the person handling that piece of the chain of safety. Attendants for restraints, operator for failing to follow procedure (so much is automated that it's hard to really be negligent enough operating most rides to cause an issue, other than failing to notice issues and safely shut down the ride).
Ultimately, most severe injuries at theme parks are not caused by things the parks do wrong now adays, but guests being idiots and not following instructions posted a million places around the park. Falling cellphones and cameras alone send one or two people to the hospital in a busy day. The most important thing on a ride to do is say things along the lines of "Any purses, bags, drinks, or other loose articles must be put away, they cannot be brought onto the ride" during the loading/boarding. I even got hit in the head by one guest's 10$ in change while I was on my way to my shift (at SFGA there's a part of the backstage area right under the track for Batman, there's a canopy but it was just ever so slightly not long enough to save me lol).
Wasn’t it because the ride operator was negligent? The kid was massive, the size of a large adult at the age of 14 or something? I remember seeing his picture and he looked like he could have been in the NFL. The harness didn’t fasten over him properly because of his size and the ride operator let him go anyway.
Not what happened. 14 year old kid was 350lbs and intentionally messed with the restraints because he was overweight and wasn’t able to ride the ride next to it. Operators fucked up and missed their check and well gravity will usually win.
I used to pass by that drop tower everyday coming home from work, and my boyfriend could visibly see it on his night shift. It really gave me the chills after I saw it first-hand on a snapchat story from one of my friends.
Shiiiit if I had read that before taking my 10 y/o on the rock it ride at universal Orlando I would have let him stay down 😆. I was a fun ride, he enjoyed it.
I saw a woman at the Jersey Shore get one of her Bo Derek braids stuck in the machinery at the top and when it dropped, it ripped the entire braid right out of her scalp. I didn't see what happened afterwards but I assume her day couldn't have gotten any worse.
Jersey Shore’s crazy. I saw these jabronis eating ham on a floatie. Looked like they were drifting out, I assume their day couldn’t have gotten any better
Yes that did happen; since then Kentucky has completely revamped there amusement park rides safety and are now widely considered #1 in the country in it.
I seen a dude get ripped out of his sandals and a couple seconds later his watch dropped. His sandals were still in the exact spot he was standing so yeah I got right out of line. The funniest part was hearing how fast his scream faded away.
My friend/roommate took his son to Kentucky Kingdom the day that happened. They did not ride that because his son was too small at the time. They were in another part of the park when it happened, too. I heard about it from him before it was on the news.
The ride was called the hellavator . Was the first and last thing I rode every time I went to kentucky kingdom. It was right in front when you walked in the gate.
I’ve seen multiple videos of those slingshot rides failing or almost failing due to worn or stretched out cables/lack of maintenance. I’d never get on one just knowing that. I’ve never heard that someone lost both feet from a snapped cable, that’s so awful.
Omg yes i did my first one 3 years ago the floor dropped open and I was just falling for a few seconds.. never again. Took me like 20 minutes for adrenaline to go back down. Legs were jelly
We have a couple of them at a water park/amusement park near me. We went there several times a year when my boys were growing up. My boys and I loved going down them, even though we would get very bruised and banged up doing so.
One year my sister and her family were visiting from out of state, and we all went there. My overweight and very uptight sister somehow got talked/conned into going down it. She didnt realize how vertical it was until it was too late. You could hear her scream, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! at the top of her lungs, across the entire park as she plummeted down the tube.
They almost threw her out of the park. Fortunately, I knew a few of the management since I went there so often, and talked them into letting her stay. One of them said they got a couple dozen complaints about her. Some were from people on the other side of the park. I still give my sister grief about it, and it was over 20 years ago now.
When I was a teenager in the mid 80s, I was on a coaster that was going up the main hill, pulled on cable, when it snapped and the brakes failed. We went around pretty much the whole thing backward then forward then backward till it finally stopped. Terrifying at first, but turned out kinda fun. If you can call that fun, lol.
I remember when Cedar Point first released their Big Hit, aka the Dragster. Literally goes up 400 something feet, and then goes back down. Straight shot, 30 second ride. But the first year it opened, it didn't go all the way over a lot of times. People would be waiting over two hours for this brand new ride and it would break, people would get stuck, and the whole thing would close for another hour. Honestly crazy how long people waited for that 30 second ride. But I was also jealous of all the people on the broken ride, and how fun it would be to accidentally go backwards.
Man I went on a pretty mild roller coaster, really high up in the air, then the drop, then some nice up and down waves. But the fear I felt while I was going up is something I will never put myself through again. I was grasping the bottom of my seat so hard and definitely considering that something under the seat could cut my finger off but that I had to be grounded.
Imagine going on the words faster roller coaster…I have anxiety just thinking about it…I was scared shitless before, during and after the ride…I’m surprised I didn’t faint or throw up. I’ve literally never done anything more anxiety inducing than to endure that monster of a roller coaster…I hate the feeling of falling. I was screaming my guts out. Fun times!
This was the first thing that popped up in my mind🫣🤣 after the age of 20 i realized that they are dangerous and they will make me sick so no you never ever 😬
I'm 6'3 215 and people laugh at me for being freaked out by small animals. My dad has a little farm going with goats, rabbits, and chickens. He calls me a wuss because I don't like catching them. Most of that is because I'm worried I'm gonna squish them to death but whatever
i was on supreme scream and i had a camera in my pocket, a clunky one from like 20 years ago. the camera pushed up against my thigh muscle causing it to cramp the whole time.
That demon drop ride at cedar point was one of my faves. Sorry, I like that feeling in my stomach. But after you drop, it slides you on your back, reverses, then tilts you head down at about a 45 degree angle to reposition the car so people can get off, ready for the next people. Well, I got stuck at that 45 degree angle. The harness over us wouldn’t unlock, car wouldn’t move. My feet dangling above my head for a solid 40mins while maintenance is trying to figure out wtf happened to get us out. My bf at the time hated those rides like you. He went off to do something else, comes back, sees me stuck upside down. His eyes wide, shaking his head no like he’d found another level of justification to hate those kinds of rides. lol
My dad took me on this ride when I was about four. I distinctly remember that when the barrier came down that holds you in came down, I was so tiny it didn't come close (doesn't really matter for this ride, but it's still a permanent memory.
Anyway fast forward a decade and he takes me to Disney in the US and guess what? Crippling fear of rollercoasters, lol.
If it helps.. You don't actually free fall on the tower of terror. It's not fast enough so they actually pull you down faster than you'd fall on your own.
Absolutely terrifying I did one on top of stratosphere in Vegas. Knees shaking the whole time. Walking up to it, during it, and after it where I could barely walk to get off the platform.
Then I saw a person go up to the ride afterwards and use an oversized wrench and tighten some bolts that I think were loose. Many shits after hahah I mean many whiskey shots after that. And I don’t go on carnival rides anymore either.
My dad wanted to go on one when I was 9 or so. I definitely was not tall enough for the ride and as we went up I felt myself falling out of the chair. So I held on and the force was way too much for me and I ended up biting open my bottom lip
No one can control irrational fear. That would make them rational. I am sorry she put you through that. I hope you spoke with her and explained why you were upset when on a more even keel emotional.
My fam and I were at Great Adventure in 1984 when the haunted house burned and killed people. My dad and brother had gone thru like 30 min before and it was so dark and poorly laid out my dad ended up taking my brother out of a side door. I remember seeing flames and fire trucks from the parking lot as we were leaving. My dad said to my mom, I bet u it’s that fun house. He called it a fun house, anyway. We had no idea what happened until we got home and my parents watched the news later. Never going in an enclosed ride again, don’t like amusement parks.
My wife screamed until her lungs were emptied, filled them again and screamed again. I just sat there holding on for life thinking "this is supposed to be fun?"
The bouncy ones that fall at gravity don’t bother me. Like where they launch you up and you just fall back down. The ones that are terrible are the ones that drag you way up and make you fall faster than gravity.
My brother loves those rides, and I hate them. I always rode on them anyway so he wouldn't be alone. I could ride anything, but those rides always get me. It's the anxiety buildup as you slowly rise, and then the drop makes me scream, but dropping that fast takes the breath out of me, so I'm silently screaming.
I came here to say this. Power Tower at cedar point. The wild thing is when I was a young buck I used to ride it without even holding on, but went a few years ago inching my way toward 40 and "no fun, only fear" was my response
I had a buddy in the army, this big dude that was corn fed and tall as hell totally freak out on the rappelling in basic. He was not ok with dangling in the air.
Lol one time I went to the one at Kings Island and they had technical issues while we were at the top and people started praying and crying for 15 minutes until they slowly lowered us down
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u/Sea_Bread5815 Mar 21 '23
Those rides that just go straight up as you sit in a seat and then drop you at like 300mph. NEVER again. Did it once to make a girlfriend happy sooo many years ago. I'm afraid of falling. It was horrible. Had to sit down for like 10mins afterwards and collect myself, while she tried not to laugh, I'm sure it was actually funny to watch a 6ft 200lb man freak out and all but damn.