Amusement Park Rides Can Work Fine, and Still be Dangerous
If you go to any kind of amusement park, you would imagine that so long as the ride or attraction that you are on works properly, and so long as the staff that is monitoring and watching over and administering the ride is competent, trained, and aware that there can’t be any problem.
But actually, this ignores yet another possible problem: What if everything about the ride works and it is being used properly—but even in its normal proper operation, the ride is dangerous?
It’s true—sometimes, the mere way that a ride is developed or designed, is, even when working properly, inherently dangerous. That’s exactly a lesson that someone in a Disney World waterpark learned last year, in a terrible accident that did not involve any kind of malfunction of the ride itself.
Accident at Disney
The accident happened at a Disney water park, on a ride where riders freefall for about 200 feet, and then fall into a pool of water at the bottom. By some estimates, while falling, people can reach speeds of about 40 miles an hour.
The victim says that because of the speed, distance, and force of the fall, when she hit the water below, her bathing suit and the water below pushed inside of her body, so much so that her groin area began to bleed and she had large cuts on her groin area. Later, at the hospital, it would turn out that she had sustained damage to her internal organs, and parts of her bowel were pushing out against her stomach and abdominal regions.
The Lawsuit
Needless to say, this is not something that should happen on an otherwise functioning amusement park ride.
A lawsuit was filed, saying that the ride is simply designed in a way that people travel, fall, and land in the water below, at too high of a speed. The lawsuit says that the dangers are particularly harmful to women because of their anatomy.
The lawsuit alleges that Disney knew or should have known that this was a possible and foreseeable risk of a ride designed this way.
Disney’s response to the lawsuit was that riders are told to cross their legs when they are on the ride and falling, and that this accident is a result of the rider’s failure to follow those clearly posted warnings. Had she done so, according to Disney, the accident would not have happened.
But the victim believes this is not a valid defense, through her attorneys saying that because of the rider’s position and speed when falling, it is almost impossible to physically remain in the position that the ride warns that people should be in, and that expecting that is wholly unrealistic, given what happens to people when they are on the ride.
Contact the Las Vegas personal injury lawyers at Cameron Law today at 702-745-4545 if you are injured on any kind of amusement park ride.
Sources:
npr.org/2023/10/05/1203732797/disney-world-water-slide-lawsuit-wedgie
usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/theme-parks/2023/10/03/disney-lawsuit-water-slide-wedgie/71045193007/
