Kid dies on amusement park ride

[Lerxst]

For those focusing on his weight, keep in mind he is reported to have been 6' 5" tall at 14.

As an adult Shaq is 7' 1" and 325 lbs. At 13 he was 6' 6" and at 16 he was 6' 10". Those numbers seem to be pretty close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaquille_O'Neal

So go ahead and call him a fat kid, I would call him quite an unusually large child where a lot (but not all of course) of his weight came from his height.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

For those focusing on his weight, keep in mind he is reported to have been 6' 5" tall at 14.

As an adult Shaq is 7' 1" and 325 lbs. At 13 he was 6' 6" and at 16 he was 6' 10". Those numbers seem to be pretty close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaquille_O'Neal

So go ahead and call him a fat kid, I would call him quite an unusually large child where a lot (but not all of course) of his weight came from his height.

Looks pretty damn fat, to me.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

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.

I encourage people NOT to watch it. It's really hard to get out of your head once you've seen it.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Warp12

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...78ecb8270b.jpg

Looks pretty damn fat, to me.

So then it's up to you to show how much he would weigh if he was physically fit and how that would matter in the discussion.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

So then it's up to you to show how much he would weigh if he was physically fit and how that would matter in the discussion.

Why? He is was a fat kid. I am a fat man and that kid was noticeably fatter than me. It matters because his size seems to be the reason the ride would not hold him. What does not matter is his level of physical fitness.

[dudalb]

you have to wonder how if that weight limit was actually enforced, I doubt they have a scale to weigh every potential customer.

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by dudalb

you have to wonder how if that weight limit was actually enforced, I doubt they have a scale to weigh every potential customer.

I can't speak for this exact ride/park, but while I've never seen a scale I have (fairly commonly but hardly universally) seen mockups of the seats at certain rides so it can be determined if/who a passenger will fit in the seat prior to them boarding the ride.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Steve

Why? He is was a fat kid. I am a fat man and that kid was noticeably fatter than me. It matters because his size seems to be the reason the ride would not hold him. What does not matter is his level of physical fitness.

Except size is not what is being focused on....he was unusually tall for a kid his age and even larger than most adults. If you're going to say the ride might have held him if he wasn't fat then I would like to understand why you think that. It is possible he would have weighed close to the same even if he was fit.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

I can't speak for this exact ride/park, but while I've never seen a scale I have (fairly commonly but hardly universally) seen mockups of the seats at certain rides so it can be determined if/who a passenger will fit in the seat prior to them boarding the ride.

I suspect it's the call of some 20 year old ride attendent.
Problem is apparently you can fit into the seat even if you are over the weight requirement.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

Except size is not what is being focused on....he was unusually tall for a kid his age and even larger than most adults. If you're going to say the ride might have held him if he wasn't fat then I would like to understand why you think that. It is possible he would have weighed close to the same even if he was fit.

If you have seen the pictures, you know that the restraint mechanism did not properly hold him, apparently due to his ginormous midsection. He was like 50 lbs over the ride's documented weight limit, on top of that.

And finally, at 6' 5", 330+ lbs is nowhere near a healthy weight for this child:

Quote:

❗ This child or teenager has a BMI that is very far from the healthy weight range. Please check the accuracy of the information you entered. If the age, weight, and height values are correct, the following shows the calculated values for this child.

Results
Based on the height and weight entered, the BMI is 39.1, placing the BMI-for-age at greater than the 99th percentile for 14-year-old boys. This falls in the BMI category obesity. BMI is a screening measure, and this child should be seen by a healthcare provider for further assessment to further assess the child’s health and determine possible causes of excess weight.

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/bmi/calculator.html

For reference, at a BMI of 40, someone is considered morbidly obese.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

Except size is not what is being focused on....he was unusually tall for a kid his age and even larger than most adults. If you're going to say the ride might have held him if he wasn't fat then I would like to understand why you think that. It is possible he would have weighed close to the same even if he was fit.

As I said, his fitness level is irrelevant:

Originally Posted by Steve

Why? He is was a fat kid. I am a fat man and that kid was noticeably fatter than me. It matters because his size seems to be the reason the ride would not hold him. What does not matter is his level of physical fitness.

[dudalb]

if the reports that the safety restraints were not properly fastened are true then the amusement park is in for a world of legal hurt.

[dudalb]

I would never ride on a free drop ride like that anyway. Roller coasters I love, but not that.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Warp12

If you have seen the pictures, you know that the restraint mechanism did not properly hold him, apparently due to his ginormous midsection. He was like 50 lbs over the ride's documented weight limit, on top of that.

And finally, at 6' 5", 330+ lbs is nowhere near a healthy weight for this child:



https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/bmi/calculator.html

For reference, at a BMI of 40, someone is considered morbidly obese.

Yes I have seen the pictures, but I do not claim to know why the restraint did not hold him. If you are claiming to know then once again I would like to understand how you know.

Even if he only weighed 250 he would still be considered in 98th percentile and obese by the CDC. And he's under the weight limit by over 30 lbs.

Quote:

Information Entered
Age (at measurement): 14 years
Sex: boy
Height: 6 feet 5 inches
Weight: 250 pounds

Results
Based on the height and weight entered, the BMI is 29.6, placing the BMI-for-age at the 98th percentile for 14-year-old boys. This falls in the BMI category obesity. BMI is a screening measure, and this child should be seen by a healthcare provider for further assessment to further assess the child’s health and determine possible causes of excess weight.

Where are you going with this? Yes, he had an unhealthy weight and BMI. How do you know that was the cause of this accident?

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Steve

As I said, his fitness level is irrelevant:

So then "he was fat" is equally irrelevant as that is just a measure of fitness.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

Even if he only weighed 250 he would still be considered in 98th percentile and obese by the CDC. And he's under the weight limit by over 30 lbs.

Dude, what weight limit are you talking about? The weight limit for the ride is 287, he was 330+. He was in fact a giant fatass who should not have been allowed on the ride. He was very nearly morbidly obese. Who cares what his BMI would have been at 250 lbs? When you look at pics of him in the seat, it looks like trying to restrain a giant egg.

Your initial argument, implying that he somehow was not tremendously fat, was ridiculously idiotic. Especially comparing him to Shaq. You haven't brought anything better to the table since.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Lerxst

So then "he was fat" is equally irrelevant as that is just a measure of fitness.

No. You seem to have serious difficulty with a simple concept. His size was quite relevant. His fitness level was not.

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Warp12

Dude, what weight limit are you talking about? The weight limit for the ride is 287, he was 330+. He was in fact a giant fatass who should not have been allowed on the ride. He was very nearly morbidly obese. Who cares what his BMI would have been at 250 lbs? When you look at pics of him in the seat, it looks like trying to restrain a giant egg.

Your initial argument, implying that he somehow was not tremendously fat, was ridiculously idiotic. Especially comparing him to Shaq. You haven't brought anything better to the table since.

I made no such argument. You stated "he was too fat to ride". What have you presented since then to support that assertion? Nothing.

You brought up BMI, not me. Now you don't think it's relevant? I showed you (which you apparently ignored) that even if he had weighed 250 he would still be considered obese and in 98th percentile for kids his age. That would be over 30 lbs under the weight limit for that ride but still obese. So again, where are you going with the obese and BMI argument?

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by Steve

No. You seem to have serious difficulty with a simple concept. His size was quite relevant. His fitness level was not.

Right, he was 6 foot 5. That's a huge kid, even if he wasn't "fat". Hell that's a large ADULT, but you don't seem to understand that size isn't just measured by weight.

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by dudalb

I suspect it's the call of some 20 year old ride attendent.
Problem is apparently you can fit into the seat even if you are over the weight requirement.

Earlier I said that this was a case I supported the possibility of suing the ride owners, or operators, or responsible party, for failing to have safeguards in place. If it is unsafe over 287 pounds, I said they should have some means of assuring that no one over 287 pounds gets on.

I've been rethinking that. We would either have to weigh every rider, or we would have to put that 20 year old in a position of saying, "Ma'am. I think you may be too fat for this ride. Please step on this scale if you wish to board the ride."

Maybe what has to happen is you put up a sign about the rule. You give riders access to test seats and scales. If the riders choose to ignore it, they do so at their own risk.

Or....maybe this was equipment failure, and/or poor equipment design, and that might be a legitimate liability issue.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

.....
I've been rethinking that. We would either have to weigh every rider, or we would have to put that 20 year old in a position of saying, "Ma'am. I think you may be too fat for this ride. Please step on this scale if you wish to board the ride."
.....

I dunno where you live, but in my part of the U.S. I have long been accustomed to walking through metal detectors at public buildings, sports arenas and other places where crowds gather, with secondary searches if they buzz. I doubt there would be much resistance if everyone in the ride line had to walk over an electronic scale that would just show a red or green light. And if the teenage operator can't exercise authority effectively, there needs to be a supervisor or security officer on-site who can.

You could also design the ride so that the belts, harnesses etc. would not appear to be functioning if the rider is too big for them to actually function.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

I've been rethinking that. We would either have to weigh every rider, or we would have to put that 20 year old in a position of saying, "Ma'am. I think you may be too fat for this ride. Please step on this scale if you wish to board the ride."

Maybe what has to happen is you put up a sign about the rule. You give riders access to test seats and scales. If the riders choose to ignore it, they do so at their own risk.

Having everyone stand on a scale is not an issue. It would be a ground-level scale that everyone stepped on in the pre-boarding process. Either way, we need to care more about safety than we do about bruising the feelings of a large/obese person.

Quite frankly, this sort of coddling is probably what led to this kid being allowed on the ride, and his subsequent gruesome death. Leaving it up to the individual makes no sense, unless you want to see more large and fat people launched into the pavement.

[erwinl]

It's not only a case of weight, but also of height.
And in this case I think the problems with the ride and the security of it started there.
For sure, he was not skinny, but his body type in width, should have been able to be properly restrained in the ride.

I myself am with a length of 185 cm (say about 6'1") thorougly average in length.
But! I have relatively short legs. With the length of my upper body I think I would end up at something like 195, maybe even 200 cm, if my body proportions would be as they are for other people. Which thus brings me for the upper body in the range this kid apparently had.

If I go sit in a ride, I can never get the security restraint closed correctly. I have to more or less fold myself downwards, by bending my lower back and suffer through the ride. Especially if there are a lot of positive G forces. Even then the restraint with me will tend to stick out more to the front, than that of my wife, next to me.
Now, I'm only 91 kg in weight and I can thus do that bending of the lower back. But if I was a bit more chubby as this kid was, I would also never be able to do even that.
I think that there the final failure of the rides restraint came from (and no, I have not seen the video and also have no intention to see it).

The problem with a lot of these restraints in rides is that they only hinge up and down in order to open and close.
Which is all well and good for most people, but with a certain kind of bodytype, this simply does not work well enough. If they would redesign the restrainst to have also a vertical movement, as well as the hinge movement they have now, then not only larger people can be safely held down, but also shorter ones.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Warp12

.....
Quite frankly, this sort of coddling is probably what led to this kid being allowed on the ride, and his subsequent gruesome death. Leaving it up to the individual makes no sense, unless you want to see more large and fat people launched into the pavement.

Let's just note that according to press reports, the kid had been turned away from other rides without complaint from him or his family. There is no basis for victim-shaming here. The kid didn't do anything wrong.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Bob001

Let's just note that according to press reports, the kid had been turned away from other rides without complaint from him or his family. There is no basis for victim-shaming here. The kid didn't do anything wrong.

I didn't say he did. I'm saying they probably were apprehensive to turn him away on that ride because they didn't want an uncomfortable situation. Like the situation Meadmaker was describing. Turning him away from large quantities of food was a different issue, outside of the park.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Warp12

.....
Turning him away from large quantities of food was a different issue, outside of the park.

And this is victim-shaming. A child is dead and his family is devastated. Not something to be snotty about.

[Warp12]

Quote:

Turning him away from large quantities of food was a different issue, outside of the park

Originally Posted by Bob001

And this is victim-shaming. A child is dead and his family is devastated. Not something to be snotty about.

Well, if you want to call it that. I call it being a realist.

I bet the family is thinking mighty hard about how they handled his weight issue and possibly enabled him.

Or, then again, maybe they aren't.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Steve

Why? He is was a fat kid. I am a fat man and that kid was noticeably fatter than me. It matters because his size seems to be the reason the ride would not hold him. What does not matter is his level of physical fitness.

Not necessarily, it could have been his height that caused the seat to fail to hold him not his weight. SHould have known better than growing that tall I guess.

As someone who is 6'5" and has only 32" inseams I have lots of trouble with things that assume more average torso size including bad experiences in roller coasters. Namely the harness hitting my shoulders before it locked in and the ride attendant jumping on the over head bar ramming it into the top of my shoulders to get it to latch.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

Not necessarily, it could have been his height that caused the seat to fail to hold him not his weight. SHould have known better than growing that tall I guess.

As someone who is 6'5" and has only 32" inseams I have lots of trouble with things that assume more average torso size including bad experiences in roller coasters. Namely the harness hitting my shoulders before it locked in and the ride attendant jumping on the over head bar ramming it into the top of my shoulders to get it to latch.

The ride had weight restrictions that were not followed. The ride apparently did not have height restrictions.

No way anything that happened is the fault of the kid. He did nothing wrong as far as I can tell. Entirely the fault of the ride operators.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Warp12

Well, if you want to call it that. I call it being a realist.

I bet the family is thinking mighty hard about how they handled his weight issue and possibly enabled him.

Or, then again, maybe they aren't.

42% of Americans are medically obese.

Quote:

Results from the 2017–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and weights, indicate that an estimated 42.5% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over have obesity, including 9.0% with severe obesity, and another 31.1% are overweight. Body mass index (BMI), expressed as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (kg/m2), is used commonly to classify overweight (BMI 25.0–29.9), obesity (BMI at or above 30.0), and severe obesity (BMI at or above 40.0).

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat...sity-adult.htm

The kid was fat. It shouldn't have cost him his life.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Bob001

42% of Americans are medically obese.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat...sity-adult.htm

The kid was fat. It shouldn't have cost him his life.

But, 42% of Americans aren't a tick below morbidly obese at 14 years of age. Nor do 42% of Americans exceed the weight limit for the ride. He should not have been allowed on the ride. Being morbidly obese does cost people their lives all the time...just not on park rides.

It's a shame that the parents didn't care enough about their child's health. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say. But, there must be safeguards in place to protect people from themselves.

[Dr. Keith]

Maybe there should be safeguards to protect people from dangerous rides, too.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by Dr. Keith

Maybe there should be safeguards to protect people from dangerous rides, too.

Yeah, that is why he should not have been allowed on the ride, as stated.

Good observation, though.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Bob001

The kid was fat. It shouldn't have cost him his life.

Seems to me that everyone here agrees with the highlight.

[Mike!]

"Officials: Adjustments were made to Orlando thrill ride before teen fell to death"

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/lo...XqfpNIdcixRHwQ

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by Mike!

"Officials: Adjustments were made to Orlando thrill ride before teen fell to death"

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/lo...XqfpNIdcixRHwQ

That, if true, provides the final missing piece of this puzzle:

Originally Posted by Myriad

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.

[Warp12]

Quote:

This report confirmed that manual adjustments had been made to the sensor [of] the seat in question that allowed the harness-to-restraint opening to be almost double that of the normal restraint opening range," Fried read before news outlets.

The improper adjustments allowed the safety lights to illuminate, Fried said, which allowed the ride to operate, although Sampson was not properly secured in his seat.

Basically bypassing the safety mechanism so that someone of his size could ride. I wonder what the motivation behind that was? Customer satisfaction? Reluctant to tell him he was too big? Perhaps this was being done regularly?

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Mike!

"Officials: Adjustments were made to Orlando thrill ride before teen fell to death"

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/lo...XqfpNIdcixRHwQ

When you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

But even before that, think lawyers. I think this will surely trigger a stampede.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Warp12

Basically bypassing the safety mechanism so that someone of his size could ride. I wonder what the motivation behind that was? Customer satisfaction? Reluctant to tell him he was too big? Perhaps this was being done regularly?

From the link:

Quote:

The report revealed that an operator of the drop tower made manual adjustments to the seat that Sampson sat in, "resulting in it being unsafe."

"This report confirmed that manual adjustments had been made to the sensor [of] the seat in question that allowed the harness-to-restraint opening to be almost double that of the normal restraint opening range," Fried read before news outlets.

The improper adjustments allowed the safety lights to illuminate, Fried said, which allowed the ride to operate, although Sampson was not properly secured in his seat.

I wonder if he used tools, or re-routed a belt, or what. Whatever he did just shouldn't have been possible.

[Lerxst]

I imagine the family's attorneys will also be using this to their advantage:

Quote:

Correction: A previous version of this story and headline included comments from someone who identified herself as Tyre Sampson's cousin and told several media outlets that the teenager said he'd been turned away from two other rides at the park. Tyre's parents have since said they do not know her. Her comments have been removed.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/us/fl...ort/index.html