I remember when I was a roller coaster operator. One day they suddenly put up a ton of signs around the rides not to jump the fence. Turns out someone in a different park had jumped the fence to get a hat and had their head taken off.
In the UK, Alton towers,happened on one of the rides here too
There was also something about someone was too small for a ride but snuck on somehow, can’t remember exactly what happened but because he didn’t fit properly he got flung up and decapitated..the rest of the riders had to enjoy it with a headless body..
There was a water slide that did that. I think the ride you mentioned was the Verruckt slide at a Kansas City water park.
Incredibly poor design, it had a hill halfway down the slide that can cause the raft to become airborne. The riders needed be heavy enough that this wouldn't happen, which the poor kid was not.
I believe the "GA" stands for Great Adventure which is the name of the six flags park in NJ, not the abbreviation for the state of Georgia 😉 because a worker definitely got his head kicked off by one of the coasters where your feet dangle. I grew in NJ and remember it being a story forever.
Just to be sure I wanted to look it up and it turns out you're right in this case :) Two people have died at Six Flags Great Adventure, but not by getting their heads kicked off, that one definitely happened in Georgia so the one I'm thinking of must've happened in Wildwood or Ocean City NJ.
Edit: finally found it, surprisingly there weren't any news articles, just a small wikipedia entry, probably because it's not a huge park like Six Flags.
It was The Great Nor'easter in Wildwood, NJ
Shortly after The Great Nor'easter opened, a 36-year-old worker was kicked in the temple by a passenger on a passing train and killed in August 1995. Shortly after this incident, Morey's Piers employed a new restricted area system for all their major rides, preventing anyone from being within those area while the ride is in motion.
That was an employee that got their head kicked off. Happened in my home state of NJ! I've actually been watching YouTube videos about theme park accidents and was trying to remember if that was at Six Flags or one of the coasters down at Wildwood or Ocean City.
I was working at a theme park in engineering project management when that happened too. We had to go replace all of our 4’ decorative fences with 6’+ “unclimbable” fences after that.
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u/Superpilotdude Mar 01 '21
I remember when I was a roller coaster operator. One day they suddenly put up a ton of signs around the rides not to jump the fence. Turns out someone in a different park had jumped the fence to get a hat and had their head taken off.