Kid dies on amusement park ride

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by cullennz

.....
In fact given this maybe the geezers heart just gave out and heart attack, given the panic attack mentioned, and he just slid out.

That shouldn't be possible. Staying in the seat doesn't and shouldn't depend on the rider hanging on. I'll bet fainting in a ride like that isn't all that rare.

[cullennz]

Originally Posted by Bob001

I would like to believe that our doctors and nurses don't murder people.

Actually, if he could have survived the immediate trauma and internal injuries, he might have recovered fully. People have survived terrible traffic accidents and falls from planes with unopened parachutes and recovered.

WTF?

That is purely your opinion.

I get one too.

Personally if I fell from 430 feet (131 meters) and knowing the likely damage after hitting concrete, please switch me off. Even if you need to do it discreet.

[cullennz]

And to be honest if you think doctors don't have to decide to stop making people like late stage cancer patients suffer the worst pain imaginable even with morphine any longer as a job you are frankly naïve. No offence though.

[newyorkguy]

State safety inspectors are already at work trying to determine what happened or what could have happened. The ride opened in late December 2021 or early January 2022 -- accounts vary -- and operated without incident until Thursday evening. A safety consultant and others are raising questions about the harness and whether the boy killed was properly seated.

Quote:

Brian Avery, a 25-year ride-safety expert based in Orlando, told Channel 9, “I have serious concerns based on the appearance and position of the harness.” Though riders should be measured for height and weight, Avery said, “It can be difficult for a ride operator to address rider weight.” Pictures and videos from Thursday night’s tragedy are raising questions. Tyree Sampson was large and tall for his age. In one clip, he can be seen sitting in his seat with his safety harness at an obvious angle, different than for skinnier riders. WFTV Orlando report

A witness told a 911 call operator that Samson seemed to slip out of his seat when the ride braked as it approached the bottom. “Bam, went straight through his chair and dropped,” the man said on the 911 call.

Below is a YouTube link to an Attractions Magazine video preview of the ride filmed in January:

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

Below is a screen cap from the video.

[Rolfe]

Hmm. These men are of normal weight. I wonder if that effective-looking safety harness didn't close or clip or secure properly, or something like that, with a much larger body on the seat?

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by cullennz

WTF?

That is purely your opinion.

I get one too.

Personally if I fell from 430 feet (131 meters) and knowing the likely damage after hitting concrete, please switch me off. Even if you need to do it discreet.

He fell out as the ride was approaching the bottom, nowhere close to 430 feet.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by cullennz

And to be honest if you think doctors don't have to decide to stop making people like late stage cancer patients suffer the worst pain imaginable even with morphine any longer as a job you are frankly naïve. No offence though.

Giving an overdose to a terminally ill patient is hardly the same as giving one to someone who is not terminal.

[Rolfe]

It all depends on how he landed. I knew a 15-year-old who died from just falling in the school playground and hitting her head on a stone step. I knew someone who survived a suicide attempt when she jumped from a very high motorway footbridge flyover, because she landed feet-first and her legs took all the damage.

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Hmm. These men are of normal weight. I wonder if that effective-looking safety harness didn't close or clip or secure properly, or something like that, with a much larger body on the seat?

Years ago, I was with a very overweight (but nowhere near 330 pound) friend at a theme park. He wasn't permitted to ride one of the steel coasters (one with a lot of inversions and negative g's) because the restraint system wouldn't fit around him close enough to lock in place. He was extremely angry about it—which might turn out to be directly relevant to the accident in question here.

What the pictures posted here show for the Free Fall ride is a seat that's form fitted around the buttocks and backs of the upper thighs, with the restraint being a shoulder harness going almost down to the groin to hold the upper body against the vertical seat back, and no separate waist or "lap" belt. In my experience, such harnesses have to be rotated/lowered to within a certain span, to engage a ratchet-like mechanism (permitting them to tighten further but not loosen) and be considered ready to ride. It was the inability to do so that prevented my husky friend from riding.

So here are some scenarios for what might have gone wrong in this case:

1. The teen's shoulder harness did rotate to within the angular range that engaged the ratchet mechanism, which the system indicated as secure, but that position wasn't actually adequate to prevent his body from slipping out of the restraint past the seat. That is, due to the angle the harness was rotated to, the bottom loop of the shoulder harness was too far away from the seat and/or too far away from the small of his back to actually hold him in.

2. The harness securing mechanism engaged but in some marginal way (perhaps poised on the very first ratchet click) and then failed under the strain during the ride.

3. The harness was lowered to within a range that activated a safety indicator, but didn't actually engage the mechanism. Perhaps this was only momentary, e.g. the rider strained and exhaled long enough to get an operator OK but the harness wasn't locked down and it released once the ride was in motion.

4. The harness couldn't engage but the operators were lenient because of the likely reaction (rage, accusations of bigotry, etc.) if they didn't permit him to ride. I hope for their sake this wasn't the case.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Myriad

....
What the pictures posted here show for the Free Fall ride is a seat that's form fitted around the buttocks and backs of the upper thighs, with the restraint being a shoulder harness going almost down to the groin to hold the upper body against the vertical seat back, and no separate waist or "lap" belt. In my experience, such harnesses have to be rotated/lowered to within a certain span, to engage a ratchet-like mechanism (permitting them to tighten further but not loosen) and be considered ready to ride. It was the inability to do so that prevented my husky friend from riding.
.....

There's also a question about whether that is the right restraint system for that particular kind of ride. This looks like a typical roller coaster harness. But the shoulder harness that keeps someone from being thrown up out of a roller coaster car might not be suitable for this tower drop ride, where the seat apparently tips forward at the end.

[newyorkguy]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

It all depends on how he landed...

I would be curious to see the autopsy describing the injuries sustained. I'm sure they are very severe. There was criticism on the Twitter account (of the man who uploaded the video of the fall) that no one was seen in close contact with the victim immediately after the fall. Attempting to determine his injures or to, possibly, comfort him. I'm not sure I agree with that. First, when someone is injured the way this young man was, I think the first thing bystanders should NOT DO is try to move them. Better to wait for the medics to arrive. Second, one of the 911 callers said the victim was unresponsive, appeared not to be breathing and appeared to have broken both of his arms and both of his legs. Another 911 caller also reported the victim was not breathing and, presumably in reference to the visible injuries, told the 911 operator, "He's dead, he's gone."

Also, the man who was at the ride with friends -- and video taped the fall -- has been in contact with victim Tyree Samson's father. The man wrote on his Twitter account that the father agreed the video could remain uploaded, at least for the immediate future.

By the way, the man who took the fall video said at first, he did not realize the fall was on his video. He did hear Samson hit the ground and after seeing the body on the ground, turned to video tape the victim and the response by park workers. But it was not until later he realized his video had captured poor Tyree Samson falling from his seat.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Myriad

Years ago, I was with a very overweight (but nowhere near 330 pound) friend at a theme park. He wasn't permitted to ride one of the steel coasters (one with a lot of inversions and negative g's) because the restraint system wouldn't fit around him close enough to lock in place. He was extremely angry about it—which might turn out to be directly relevant to the accident in question here.
.....

Apparently at Disney they have "test seats" at rides like this that allow a rider to see for himself whether he can fit, without the embarrassment of an operator telling him he's too big.

Quote:

The best option to see if you are a good fit for a Disney ride is to check one of the test seats. These are available on most of the rides when size may be a problem.

The test seats are conveniently located outside of the ride itself. This provides you with multiple benefits.

https://expeditionhopper.com/is-ther...-disney-rides/

Too bad this place didn't have the same thing.

[Mike!]

I suspect, with zero evidence to date, of course, that there are other inadvertent videos of this accident we haven't, or won't see still. My thinking is pretty simple, it's an amusement park, and most everyone has a camera with them. Lots of friends taking pictures and videos of friends having fun.
The guy that caught this didn't know he had it right away, and I'm guessing others have too. Once these are found, if they exist, hopefully they get turned over to investigators, and not shopped around to the TV tabloids looking for the highest bidder.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

.....
By the way, the man who took the fall video said at first, he did not realize the fall was on his video. He did hear Samson hit the ground and after seeing the body on the ground, turned to video tape the victim and the response by park workers. But it was not until later he realized his video had captured poor Tyree Samson falling from his seat.

Speaking of that video, I noticed at the end, when other riders got off, several of them had to pick up their shoes. I'm not sure what it says about the amount and direction of force that they were knocked out of their shoes, and the shoes landed at their feet.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Speaking of that video, I noticed at the end, when other riders got off, several of them had to pick up their shoes. I'm not sure what it says about the amount and direction of force that they were knocked out of their shoes, and the shoes landed at their feet.

They take them off before the ride. Presumably a safety precaution to prevent them from flying around if they are too loose to stay on

[Mike!]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Speaking of that video, I noticed at the end, when other riders got off, several of them had to pick up their shoes. I'm not sure what it says about the amount and direction of force that they were knocked out of their shoes, and the shoes landed at their feet.

If you see the full, nearly 5 minute video, they all have their shoes off before the ride starts. I don't know the reason, but it could well be to keep loose fitting foot ware from being lost most anytime during the ride.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

They take them off before the ride. Presumably a safety precaution to prevent them from flying around if they are too loose to stay on

I didn't notice that. Makes sense. There are probably a lot of sandals and flip-flops.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Mike!

If you see the full, nearly 5 minute video, they all have their shoes off before the ride starts. I don't know the reason, but it could well be to keep loose fitting foot ware from being lost most anytime during the ride.

Getting hit by one of those Crocs dropped from 400 ft is gonna smart.

[Mike!]

Looks like the actual operations manual for the ride says there's a maximum weight limit of 287 pounds (130kg. page 58), so at 340 lbs. he was at least 50+ over that.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/or...YwS6EzI2uX4BC0

[BobTheCoward]

Originally Posted by Mike!

Looks like the actual operations manual for the ride says there's a maximum weight limit of 287 pounds, so he was at least 50+ over that.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/or...YwS6EzI2uX4BC0

It seems like if you manufacture rides, the more people that ride the ride, then the probability that staff let's on a person not within spec approaches 1.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Family has hired high-profile lawyers.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...eey-story.html

I would be surprised if Florida doesn't have pretty severe tort caps. "Tort reform" was a right wing political project for decades now.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

I would be surprised if Florida doesn't have pretty severe tort caps. "Tort reform" was a right wing political project for decades now.

Looks like there are limits for punitive damages, but not for actual losses, including pain and suffering. A lifetime's lost income could be millions of dollars, plus his painful death and the loss to his family. The operator won't get off easy.
https://www.enjuris.com/florida/pers...mage-caps.html

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by BobTheCoward

It seems like if you manufacture rides, the more people that ride the ride, then the probability that staff let's on a person not within spec approaches 1.

Of course, the other side if that if you are going to design a giant, industrial-scale ride, it should be able to accommodate anybody who can sit in it.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Of course, the other side if that if you are going to design a giant, industrial-scale ride, it should be able to accommodate anybody who can sit in it.

I disagree. A weight limit is fine, it is no different than height requirements.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Of course, the other side if that if you are going to design a giant, industrial-scale ride, it should be able to accommodate anybody who can sit in it.

That's silly. What about someone who is 400 pounds? 500? Obviously a weight limit is reasonable.

They should have had a sign like they do on a lot of rides: "you must be this tall" or "you must weigh less than ..."

Those free-fall parachute rides do that because it's the wind in their tunnel that keeps people floating in the air.

And the staff needed to be better trained, obviously. Also, they didn't even check the kid's pulse or anything. Also a sign of very poor training.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Warp12

I disagree. A weight limit is fine, it is no different than height requirements.

Fair enough, as long as it's posted and there's a scale at the gate. As I noted above, Disney has "test seats" for customers to try out at some rides.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

That's silly. What about someone who is 400 pounds? 500? Obviously a weight limit is reasonable.

They should have had a sign like they do on a lot of rides: "you must be this tall" or "you must weigh less than ..."
.....

I'm assuming that someone above a ridiculous weight wouldn't be able to fit into the seat. But sure, a weight limit is reasonable if it's posted and testable.

[Olmstead]

It seems pretty clear what happened:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/29/u...ort/index.html

Quote:

The teen who fell to his death from an amusement park ride in Florida last week said he was turned away from two other rides at the park because of his size, according to his cousin.

[...]

"Harness was still in a down and locked position when the ride stopped," said the report filed by the operator with the fair rides division of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

He didn't really fit, so the harness wasn't positioned correctly, leaving enough space for him to slip out. A belt between the harness and the seat might have prevented this tragedy. It seems like a very cheap extra fail-safe, so I'm perplexed why this ride doesn't use it.

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Warp12

I disagree. A weight limit is fine, it is no different than height requirements.

A weight limit seems fine to me, but if you have a weight limit based on safety, and you don't enforce that weight limit, that is totally unacceptable.


I'm generally anti-lawsuit, but I think in this case, perhaps the people responsible for that ride really ought to be sued and lose big time.

Maybe even criminal negligience, depending on exact circumstances. The operating manual said weight limit 287. The kid was more, a lot more, than 287. If they have an operating manual that says the ride is unsafe over 287, then they need to have a procedure for excluding people over 287, and that procedure better be more than, "Hey....college kid working weekend as the amusement park. Make sure no fat people get on the ride."

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

A weight limit seems fine to me, but if you have a weight limit based on safety, and you don't enforce that weight limit, that is totally unacceptable.


I'm generally anti-lawsuit, but I think in this case, perhaps the people responsible for that ride really ought to be sued and lose big time.

Maybe even criminal negligience, depending on exact circumstances. The operating manual said weight limit 287. The kid was more, a lot more, than 287. If they have an operating manual that says the ride is unsafe over 287, then they need to have a procedure for excluding people over 287, and that procedure better be more than, "Hey....college kid working weekend as the amusement park. Make sure no fat people get on the ride."

287 is not even "no fat people". Plenty of fat people (including yours truly) would be well under that limit. I doubt many people can accurately estimate that weight limit, especially for someone who is so unusually large (reported the guy was 6'5").

If weight, not size, is the real limiting factor, they probably ought to have some way of weighing directly.

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by Olmstead

It seems pretty clear what happened:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/29/u...ort/index.html


He didn't really fit, so the harness wasn't positioned correctly, leaving enough space for him to slip out. A belt between the harness and the seat might have prevented this tragedy. It seems like a very cheap extra fail-safe, so I'm perplexed why this ride doesn't use it.

The harness still being down and locked in position after the fall was the key piece of evidence (lacking in earlier news reports) to distinguish between some of the scenarios I listed before. It's pretty clear the first of those is what happened.

Essentially, the seat and the shoulder harness are supposed to hold the rider in place by wrapping almost completely around them in the vertical direction. Too large a person, and that hold becomes less effective, like a one-hand grip on a volleyball instead of a tennis ball.

It's still a bit surprising to me that the shoulder harness mechanism would lock in place and produce an OK indication under those circumstances, but that's what the evidence appears to show.

A belt between the seat and harness might have helped. More likely, such a belt would have been too short to connect for a 300+-pound rider, which at least would have been a clearer indicator of a safety disqualification.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Myriad

....
A belt between the seat and harness might have helped. More likely, such a belt would have been too short to connect for a 300+-pound rider, which at least would have been a clearer indicator of a safety disqualification.

It still chills me to think about this. A lot went wrong. But the kid might have lived if the ride had just had a footrest, so the rider could push back if he felt he was slipping forward. There was nothing this kid could do to save himself.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Apparently at Disney they have "test seats" at rides like this that allow a rider to see for himself whether he can fit, without the embarrassment of an operator telling him he's too big.

https://expeditionhopper.com/is-ther...-disney-rides/

Too bad this place didn't have the same thing.

They have them here at Six Flags Over Texas, and shortly after they added them you were required to show that you could fit in the seat properly at the start of the line before you were allowed to even enter the queue.

Want to guess when they added them? After fatal incidents on those same rides the year prior.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/flags-texa...ry?id=19720139

If memory serves me correctly this is the last incident before the restraint systems and seat were completely changed on that ride. There have been other fatalities since then however.

https://www.fox4news.com/news/woman-...as-giant-death

I've been going to this park at least once a year for over 20 years and Texas Giant is still one of my favorite rides.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Myriad

The harness still being down and locked in position after the fall was the key piece of evidence (lacking in earlier news reports) to distinguish between some of the scenarios I listed before. It's pretty clear the first of those is what happened.

Essentially, the seat and the shoulder harness are supposed to hold the rider in place by wrapping almost completely around them in the vertical direction. Too large a person, and that hold becomes less effective, like a one-hand grip on a volleyball instead of a tennis ball.

It's still a bit surprising to me that the shoulder harness mechanism would lock in place and produce an OK indication under those circumstances, but that's what the evidence appears to show.

A belt between the seat and harness might have helped. More likely, such a belt would have been too short to connect for a 300+-pound rider, which at least would have been a clearer indicator of a safety disqualification.

I'm also wondering if he lost consciousness shortly before the moment where the g-forces forced him out of the seat. It would make sense based on the reports from witnesses/friends on his state of mind at the time.

I could be wrong on this but I think that the body going "limp" at that moment certainly would have made it easier for his body to come out of the seat.

[Galaxie]

Just spitballing here, but if the ride's published weight limit was 287 lbs., the actual designed load should've been somewhere around 6 times higher*.

With the harness appearing down & locked afterward, I wonder if the safety switch failed, the harness was not actually locked fully, and then it locked itself after he fell out?


*I only found one document that gave a safety factor, and that was for roller coasters.

[Warp12]

I mean, just putting this in stark terms: he was too damn fat for this ride.

I have seen where some said he was "large and athletic" in stature. No. He was tall and ultra-fat with lactating man-boobs and a huge gut. By what I can see, that fat gut was the problem, as far as achieving a proper safety condition. I place the blame on the park for not identifying this obvious risk.

It comes down to training, and safety-minded culture, in the end. I think that the youth of the employees is a factor, too. This is why I don't like park rides. The kid who screwed up my #3 at McDonald's now has a role in whether I live or die.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Warp12

I mean, just putting this in stark terms: he was too damn fat for this ride.

I have seen where some said he was "large and athletic" in stature. No. He was tall and ultra-fat with lactating man-boobs and a huge gut. By what I can see, that fat gut was the problem, as far as achieving a proper safety condition. I place the blame on the park for not identifying this obvious risk.

It comes down to training, and safety-minded culture, in the end. I think that the youth of the employees is a factor, too. This is why I don't like park rides. The kid who screwed up my #3 at McDonald's now has a role in whether I live or die.

Yeah, we get it. He was big and fat. He was also 14. A lot of adults failed to protect him. As noted, other parks have "try-on" seats. There should have been one here, and a scale. The ride should have been designed so riders couldn't be thrown out. What would it take? An extra strap? And the operator should have turned him away. He had been turned away from other rides without a problem, but at this one they apparently said "Good to go!" This not only shouldn't have happened, it shouldn't have been possible.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

I'm also wondering if he lost consciousness shortly before the moment where the g-forces forced him out of the seat. It would make sense based on the reports from witnesses/friends on his state of mind at the time.

I could be wrong on this but I think that the body going "limp" at that moment certainly would have made it easier for his body to come out of the seat.

It would explain why he didn't scream or flail on the way down.

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by Galaxie

Just spitballing here, but if the ride's published weight limit was 287 lbs., the actual designed load should've been somewhere around 6 times higher*.

With the harness appearing down & locked afterward, I wonder if the safety switch failed, the harness was not actually locked fully, and then it locked itself after he fell out?


*I only found one document that gave a safety factor, and that was for roller coasters.

That kind of safety factor makes sense for the strength of mechanical components. The seat shouldn't break, or the harness ratchet mechanism give way, or the harness bend, or the brakes that decelerate the ride fail, under a many times extra load. And as far as we know, they didn't.

But in this case we're really talking about the size and shape of a container. You can't build a fivefold "safety" factor into a five-gallon jug just in case someone tries to put seven (or twelve or twenty-five) gallons into it. Even if the container is very strong, the problem is the volume, not the weight. If the seats were designed to sufficiently restrain 300+ pound people, they wouldn't be shaped right to safely restrain smaller people. That's why there are minimum height rules for them as well. It's already pretty impressive that they work over such a wide range.

I won't be surprised if in the future, some amusement park rides will have one or two XXL-6XL seats included. Like handicapped parking spaces, they'll go unused a lot of the time, but it could be worth it. (Actually, if they work for XXL people they could get used pretty often in the U.S., but the process of negotiating who uses them, if they can also use the regular seats, would become awkward.) There will still be a few would-be riders who are too large even for the large seats, and there would still be complaints (e.g. the large seat is in the back of the roller coaster train and the 350-pound rider would prefer to be in the front) but it might be worth it for public relations value.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

It would explain why he didn't scream or flail on the way down.

I realize some people haven't/won't see(n) the video, but yes he does not seem to be conscious when he comes out of the seat. Then again it happened very fast and it's hard to really tell without slowing it down.