Falling hundreds of feet, drowning, getting electrocuted, getting your feet ripped off, and getting decapitated—all things that can happen to you at your family-friendly amusement park. This week, we discuss the ten worst amusement park disasters in American history!
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Falling hundreds of feet, drowning, getting electrocuted, getting your feet ripped off, and getting decapitated—all things that can happen to you at your family-friendly amusement park. This week, we discuss the ten worst amusement park disasters in American history!
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
This week, make sure you're strapped in. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody, welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
Chris:And I'm Chris.
Jeff:Thank you again for joining us. And here we go with our disclaimer. We are going to curse from time to time. And depending on the episode, we will touch on some mature subject matter and we inject our humor into a lot of this stuff. So if that is not your thing, then maybe this podcast is not for you. But for everybody else, get ready, settle in, because here we go with this week's topics. Alright, does the name Taylor Shebizness ring a bell?
Chris:Shebizness? I remember talking about them, but I can't remember what it was about.
Jeff:OK, so this was episode 53, where we talked about this woman named Taylor Shebizness, that is her last name. She was the one, you're gonna remember now, she was the one who put her boyfriend in a dog collar? And then killed him. Oh yeah. Yeah. And chopped him up and put his head and dick in a bucket. how could I forget that? Right. So, uh, that was in Wisconsin. And remember they found her guilty of murder, but then they had to decide whether she was insane or not. Right, right. And uh, yeah, the jury came back and said, she's insane or not insane. So, She's going to prison for the rest of her life. That's bad news for her. Yeah, it is. Is it a life sentence? It is a life sentence, yeah. Parole? Yep. Uh, no, I don't know if she, uh, is going to be eligible for parole or not. I don't know. But, and, you know, the jury was out for 30 minutes. Deciding whether she was guilty or not. Yeah. And I think that was about what they were out for this time. I think it was a little bit longer, but no, not insane. According to that Wisconsin jury. So she's going away forever.
Chris:A person who does that is clearly fucked up, but there's a difference between that and being insane. It sounds
Jeff:insane, but. Yeah, if the standard was fucked up, then a whole lot of people would be in a mental hospital right now who are just in prison. Right. We have talked in a few instances about amusement park rides. You don't like, you don't like swinging back and forth. You don't like going around in circles. No, you like roller coasters. Okay. Roller coasters are my thing. Yeah, you narrowly dodged dying from the sky ride thing at the State Fair of Texas a long time ago, riding it, what was it, two days before
Chris:it fell? I think so, yeah, it was within the week.
Jeff:Alright, have you ever feared for your life on an amusement park ride?
Chris:No, I wouldn't say it's gone that far. I've had some very disturbing dreams where I feared for my life on an amusement park ride. I don't know what's
Jeff:brought that up, but I've had some bad,
Chris:bad juju on the rides in my
Jeff:dreams. Thankfully, those are not reality. Uh, the reason I ask is because today I've got... The Top 10 Worst Amusement Park Disasters in U. S. History. Now,
Chris:we'll see. I'm just going to be able to cash in my season pass after
Jeff:this. Exactly, yes. We're probably defunding Six Flags as we speak. So, there are several sites, there are YouTube videos, there's a bunch of stuff out there where people are talking about the worst Amusement park disasters in history, because how do you define the word? Like, what are we doing here? Is it how gruesome it is? Is it body count? Is it body count plus injuries, whatever. So it's kind of subjective and my list is subjective. Although the sites that I checked, there was a lot of overlap between what we've got here and, and what I found on the various websites. So the way I've got this arranged is by death count. OK, and uh, the first two, though, actually didn't involve deaths, but they are well worth talking about, so, this'll probably add, this'll give you fuel for your already fucked up nightmares regarding rollercoaster rides. I'm sure
Chris:we'll probably have to do an episode of updates on my dreams after this.
Jeff:I would be all for that. OK, are you ready?
Chris:I'm ready. I feel a little bit better, if that matters, that, you know, number 10 and number 9 don't have deaths. I was afraid of where we were starting. How many deaths are we already up to at 10 and
Jeff:nine, right? Okay. Number 10, it was a ride called Terminal Velocity in Wisconsin at a, at an, a theme park called Extreme World. This happened in July of 2009. Well, that name tells you all you need to know right there. Uh, I know it. I looked at the video, uh, not the video of this incident, but. Somebody filmed, you know, what happens to you on this ride. And basically what it is, it's a, it's a hundred foot tower and you stand, or I think they might lower you a little bit, but basically there's a trap door. Um, there's no safety harness or anything. And you just free fall 100 feet into, uh, a netting that's on top of some airbags. So just describing that, would you ride this? Absolutely not. No, I'm out. Totally out.
Chris:Yeah. And, and see, not because I would necessarily think. I'm going to die. It's, there's just one more thing to add to the list. I can't stand the feeling
Jeff:of falling. Right. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of it either. Yeah.
Chris:So I'm not a fan of falling. So, so yeah, I wouldn't write it just for that. Nevermind if I thought I could get
Jeff:killed from it. Right. So this already sounds crazy, but get this, there was no, when this happened, I don't know if this ride is still around, or if they changed things, you know, to make it safer or whatever, but when this incident happened, there was no mechanism to prevent someone from being dropped if the net wasn't in place and the airbags were not full. So, when somebody fell onto the stuff, you have to re you have to make sure there's enough air in it for the next person. You gotta put the netting up and all that. They didn't have anything, so all the person would do, the person at the top would radio the person at the bottom and ask, are we ready to go? And then that was it. Oh my god. I know. So in July, uh, I might've said 2009 this happened. It was in 2010. 2010, 14 year old Tegan Marty was dropped from the tower, but here we go because of miscommunication between the operators, the net and the airbags were not ready when she was released. She fell a hundred feet to the ground. She lived. Yes. But, she was totally messed up. She suffered brain swelling, severe spinal and pelvic fractures, intestinal lacerations. It took years of rehabilitation for her to even be able to walk again. I can't
Chris:believe you could fall that far
Jeff:and not die. I know. So I don't know, I'm sure all this would have come out because I'm assuming, well, there was a criminal case, the rider, one of the ride operators was found guilty of, what's the charge here, the conviction, felony reckless injury and received a fine. So I don't think any jail time. But I'm sure there was a civil lawsuit and I'm sure the stuff came out, but actually how much air was in the airbags and all that. But right. She lived. But that's horrible. Yeah, it is. It's crazy. All right. Number nine. Also, no death, but holy shit. All right. This happened at Six Flags, Kentucky Kingdom. Just the title of that. Are we trusting Kentucky to operate rides? Okay. Maybe not anymore. Right. There's a lot of people walking around the city that look like me, not as many as there used to be. Okay. Uh, this is, uh, I think they've got this as Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. It's the... Uh, Superman Tower of Power ride, don't they have, so this shoots you up like really fast and then you fall really fast, of course, right? So that's not doing that either. Basically all it does. No, I'm not either. I remember seeing that for the first time and thinking, nope, I'm out, not doing that. OK, so they had this Superman Tower of Power ride at this particular Six Flags in Kentucky. Um, 13 year old Kaitlin Lassiter got on the tower. And, as she starts going up, everything's fine, but as the ride began, one of the cables, like as they're about to fall, one of the cables snapped. Wow. And, the ride drops, and the cable hits some people, but part of the cable also wound around her legs. Oh no. And, yeah. It shattered her left femur, severed both of her feet, and yes, she's, she's gonna wish she had died. Exactly. As she's going down, she has, like, they drop. She's got no feet when she gets to the bottom. Her left leg is shattered. Um, they were able to reattach the foot on her right leg, but the other one, her leg and the foot was too messed up and they couldn't reattach it, so she got that amputated below the knee. See,
Chris:that's the last thing I would expect would happen on that. Yeah. I mean, I would expect a heart attack, I would expect just falling out of the seat, something like that. But not a cable coming and just... Subpar Talks,
Jeff:LGBT, subpartalks, IMDb. I mean, it did cut it, but it's just ripping your feet off. Yeah.
Chris:Well, and I'll tell you what, anytime I've ever heard about somebody's femur getting broken, and in this case you're saying shattered, that just sends chills through me. That bone is massive. It's the biggest bone in your body. Subpar Talks, LGBT, subpartalks, www. independentjeff. com, www. independentjeff. com, www. independentjeff. com, Just broken in half at a minimum
Jeff:and that like that's serious shit just aside from the break like you're talking about arteries and all sorts of shit yeah
Chris:oh yeah people die just from getting their leg broken because of the arteries right there
Jeff:okay so that was another non death Everything else from here on out, there are deaths. Steppin it up. OK. Yeah, we are. Crankin it up a notch. Alright. I have to include, so number 8 here, this happened at Six Flags Over Georgia. It involves the Batman ride. Have you ridden the Batman ride at Six Flags Over Texas?
Chris:Yeah, I've ridden two different Batman rides. One where you're standing up and then one, so you're standing up on the roller coaster and then the other one where you're sitting, hanging underneath
Jeff:the track. Yes. So for those of you who don't know, this Batman ride, and it's the exact same ride at, at, uh, the Six Flags Over Georgia where this stuff happened. You're, it is a roller coaster, but the track is above you, so you're hanging. And of course you're, you're locked in, you know, and then your feet are just dangling. Yeah.
Chris:I've been worried about that.
Jeff:Yep. I have too. Like, is everything that we're going over low enough so that I don't kick it? Right. How far are my legs hanging down? Okay. 2002, a 58 year old Six Flags worker was struck in the head and killed by a dangling leg of a passenger as he wandered into the ride's path after entering a locked, no access area during the ride's operation. The passenger who killed him, I mean, she didn't mean to, obviously, but it was a 14 year old girl. She was hospitalized, uh, with leg injuries, but she was released, so she was OK. Damn. And it'd feel
Chris:bad for the girl, too, because... Yeah, I mean, not just the injury, but knowing that, yeah, it wasn't her fault. I don't know how you say it. Obviously it wasn't her fault, but just knowing that you were a part of that. Yeah. What a moron. Why are you going under the ride while
Jeff:it's going like that? I don't know. And I wonder if she saw it. You think she saw it? Like some people just close their eyes and scream on a rollercoaster. I don't, I want to know what's happening. Yeah, I
Chris:look, no, I keep my eyes open.
Jeff:I do too. And when I'm on that Batman ride, I'm looking down like it, it's kind of alarming that your legs are just dangling. Yes, it is. Yeah. Last time I wrote it, I felt like it was going to pass out.
Chris:That's always a possibility.
Jeff:Okay. So that same ride, again I'm including two incidents here, that same ride in 2008, so six years later, a 17 year old, Jesus Christ, he did the same thing. So witnesses, I read this in an article, witnesses said he had lost a hat when he was on the Batman ride, his hat flew off and he wanted to retrieve it. So he also went into the forbidden zone, just like that other guy did, like don't go here, it's dangerous. And I don't know exactly what hit him from the Batman ride, but he was decapitated. Oh no. Yeah. But he didn't know what
Chris:hit him
Jeff:either. I hope not. I don't think so. God almighty. Holy shit. Like, don't go back there.
Chris:You would have to think that's part of the, uh, the ride that hit him. I mean, maybe that could happen from a person hitting him going at that speed, but you would think it'd be part of the
Jeff:ride. Yeah. Now, this article says that, uh, he and a friend were trying to take a shortcut back into the park. after they had left for lunch. So they left for lunch. And then we're trying to get back in. Other people said, no, they're trying to get a hat. So I don't know what the true story is there, but ultimately doesn't really matter. Like he lost his head. Not literally.
Chris:Yeah. He lost his hat and then his head,
Jeff:you might get your hat back, but now you don't have a head to put your head on.
Chris:Yeah. That reminds me of, uh, The office episode where he finds out that his old boss was decapitated. Michael being Michael says his cap was detailed.
Jeff:Yeah. All right. Number seven. Have you ridden the roaring rapids at six flags over Texas? I have. Is that, do you know, is that still a ride? As far as I know, it is. I think so, yeah. I remember hearing about this after it happened. It was a big story, you might remember it too. It happened in 19, so for those of you who don't know, I'm sure they have this kind of shit at other theme parks, but it's, at least when I wrote it, and it's been Decades since I rode the Roaring Rapids, but there are rapids. They're not really big rapids, but it's this round raft that holds like, what, 10 people, 15 people, maybe? Probably 10 to 12, I think. Yeah. OK. And you have a seat belt. You got to put the seat belt on. And you just go down the river and it's kind of rough and you might get wet depending on, you know, the, the rotation of the raft and all that. And that's it. It's not really scary. Uh, it's just one of those things that, Hey, we might get wet. Yeah. I've
Chris:come off of it completely soaked and I've come off of it nearly dry.
Jeff:So yeah, same here. It
Chris:depends on which side you're on and who else is on the boat
Jeff:and okay. Uh, so this was in 1999 at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, Valeria Cartwright of West Helena, Arkansas was killed and 10 other people were injured. I don't exactly know what their injuries were, but their raft overturned in two to three feet of water. And the problem was the thing that the air goes in, whatever, it deflated all of a sudden for whatever reason. And that allowed a lot of slack in the, the raft. And it got caught on an underwater pipe, and so it just flipped the boat over, and of course she strapped in, which everybody was, but she wasn't able to get the strap out, and I think in all the chaos, you know, people freaking out, which I'd be doing if I were in that situation, and then they realize, oh, not everybody's out, and then she was dead. So, I
Chris:didn't realize that all of that happened along with it, that it was deflating, that it got caught on a pipe. I thought it only turned over, and that, that was part of my question in hearing about it was, well, why couldn't they just unstrap themselves and, I mean, three feet of water you could stand up, but, yeah, I didn't realize that there were those other factors keeping them from getting out.
Jeff:Yeah, I just remember hearing about that, but I didn't know the, yeah, I didn't know the circumstances either. Uh, there was a lawsuit, of course, as there should be. Six Flags agreed to pay 4 million to the victim's family. So, damn. That's such an innocuous ride, you know? Yeah,
Chris:exactly. You never think something's gonna happen to you on that, no. Yeah.
Jeff:OK, number six, a place neither one of us has been to, Disneyland, nope, sure haven't. Uh, this happened in 1967, a 16 year old boy from Hawthorne, California was jumping between cars of the People Mover. I don't know what that is. I know there used to be, anyway, like a monorail thing, and it's like a train that goes around the park, or something. Maybe I'm getting things mixed up, but I think it's like a train. They call it the people mover. I think it's the same thing. OK, uh, so he was jumping between cars, he was struck by an oncoming train and pulled underneath it into the machinery. His body, God Almighty, his body was dragged for hundreds of feet before the ride was stopped. God damn. Uh, the train had to be disassembled to remove what was left of his body. Oh my God.
Chris:Man, you would hope that it was just over for him
Jeff:real quick. I know, I know. I thought about that. Like, did he die instantly or was he dragged? You know, he was still alive and being dragged. Yeah. That's horrible. No,
Chris:I just want it to take one bite and end
Jeff:it. Yep. Damn. All right. Number five. This was in Orlando. At, uh, an amusement park called Icon Park. It was a ride called the Orlando Freefall. It sounds like kind of the Superman Tower of Power thing. That's kind of what it sounds like. OK. 14 year old Tyrese Samson was at the park with his football teammates. Oh, this ride bills itself as the world's tallest drop tower. 430 feet. 430 feet. God, you know, that's plenty of time to think about the fact that you are falling, you know, like that's, that's excessive. Yeah, it's excessive. Uh, there was a problem here. Samson was nearly a hundred ride's posted weight limit. So, Assuming you were one of the workers at this Orlando freefall ride, and somebody weighed a hundred pounds more, what would you tell them? I'm sorry, you can't ride. You can't ride. You exceed the weight limit. You are... Uh, too heavy, sorry, you're gonna have to find something else. But for whatever reason, this worker's decision was, oh, I just won't strap the harness as tight as it is on other people, and we'll send them up with everybody else, yeah. Now, what could possibly go wrong? What could possibly go wrong? He slips, of course, out from the safety harness when the thing starts to drop, and he falls 400, whatever I said it is, 430 feet. When was this? This was in... This sounds familiar. 2022, so... Oh, OK. Might be what I heard then. Uh, god damn, he weighed 383 pounds. Shit. Jesus. That's excessive, too. That is excessive. Objectively excessive. So, when the thing started to fall, that's when he slipped out of his harness. Do you think he beat the other people down to the ground? Well,
Chris:given that they're somewhat controlled, I don't know that it's a total free fall. Yeah, he would have beat
Jeff:him. I, that's what I was thinking too. Yeah, they're, they're not, I mean, they call it free fall, but there is some resistance there. Yeah.
Chris:Now, if it were a total free fall, then we can go back to the terminal velocity idea and they would have been at the same time.
Jeff:Science. Yep. Damn. OK, this is our first water park disaster. You like water parks? Uh,
Chris:they're OK. It's not my favorite, but I can have a good time
Jeff:there. I've actually never been to a water park. It doesn't seem interesting to me. Yeah, it doesn't seem interesting. Uh, I don't know, crowds, people yelling, kids yelling, urinating in the pools. I just, you know, I don't think I want any part of that. Yeah, I try to block
Chris:out, I always try to block out the idea of urination. I don't want to think about
Jeff:it. That's probably wise. Yeah. Alright, uh, are you familiar with the Schlitterbahn water parks?
Chris:Oh yeah, I know the one on the way to San Antonio.
Jeff:Yeah, so there's one in, like, Central, South Texas, there might be another one here, uh, this particular one was in Kansas City, Missouri, and, uh, they decided they were gonna build a water slide there that was 169 feet tall, the world's tallest Water slide. Now I don't know anything about water slides, but that seemed, I mean, talk about excessive. That seems excessive. Yeah. 169 feet.
Chris:See, I couldn't, I couldn't make myself get on
Jeff:that. No. Imagine how long it takes to climb up to it. Yeah. My God,
Chris:that's a long time to think about it. I would talk myself out of
Jeff:it. Yeah. Okay. They called this ride the uch. Which is German for crazy. Well, there you go. So what it did is you, you, uh, you're dropped on the slide, right? So you're going down and then you go up a part and then you descend again. So it's like you, you kind of go up an incline and then, you know, it's the rest of the way down. And they had a net over the top so that people wouldn't fly out. And they tested this thing. It took two years to build this thing. And the only really safety tests that they did involved sandbags. So they just launched sandbags down thing and Oh, let's see what happens with this. They decided that he needed to put a net over it so that, you know, people didn't fly out or whatever. So, in 2016, 10 year old Caleb Schwab, holy shit, he started coming down the slide and they placed you on a raft, so it's not just you, you're on a little thing, I don't, I don't know how big or whatever, but you're on a little raft as you're going down the slide. OK. And he went airborne on the rise after the initial drop. But he didn't hit the netting, he hit a metal support on the slide and he was decapitated. Oh no. His head and his body, this gets worse, his head and his body landed in the water chute and slid down the rest of the way. That's
Chris:what I was wondering, like what happens at the
Jeff:bottom? It's worse. It came to a stop at the pool, uh, in the pool at the ride's bottom, where Caleb's brother and mother were waiting. Oh, damn. Can you imagine? No. I can't even imagine. The horror. The horror. This is... God, it just keeps getting worse. The guests who were riding behind Caleb suffered facial injuries, probably, they don't know for sure, but probably from his decapitated head slamming into them. That's just horrible. It is. Damn. I don't even know what to say about that. Uh, that might be... the most gruesome on here. Yeah. Just awful.
Chris:That's terrible.
Jeff:So, I read a little bit about that because Schlitterbahn started in Texas and, uh, they are the guy who started it and I think maybe one or two other people have been brought up on criminal charges involving this. Really? But yeah, no, I don't, I read an article on it. I don't know how current that was, so I don't know if it's ongoing or if it's been resolved or, or what. But they cited all sorts of lack of testing and there have been injuries reported from this that they weren't reporting properly and, and all of that. And I found this out too. We've talked about this before, like who the fuck is even inspecting these rides that we get on? And in Texas, I don't know about other states, but in Texas, there is government oversight. It's from the Texas Department of Insurance, but all the Texas Department of Insurance does. Is make sure that the theme park is insured and that the insurance company is inspecting the ride once a year. And then the theme park operators have to report any injuries. They have to keep a log and they have to send that in like once every three months to the Texas department of insurance. Well,
Chris:that's not nearly
Jeff:enough. No, it's not. And you're relying on, and obviously the insurance companies are going to have an incentive to make sure that the rides are safe, but, you know, what all goes into that and how lax are the standards at the Texas Department of Insurance? Like, it's just, you know. Right. It seems pretty messed up. Well, that
Chris:just makes me feel worse about the whole thing because I've been to Six Flags, you know, in the early in the day, so gotten there early enough that they're still testing certain rides and you see, oh yeah, they're running it, nobody's on it. This is them testing it for two or three times, whatever. But you realize these are probably teenagers, very young adults that are running the ride and what are they testing for? It's like, well, we sent it up and it came back, so, you know, it's, yeah, it worked. That, that's enough for them. I mean, how much more are they going to inspect
Jeff:at that point? I don't know. And it's on a goddamn track. I mean, you know, unless it flies off, it is coming back, but there aren't people on there. Like, how do you know that everything's fine? No idea. Kind of terrifying. Yeah. OK. Thanks All that stuff has involved, well, the first two were no deaths, then we had one death, now we're moving to multiple deaths, so we're up to number three on the list, and we're cranking it up even more. Yeah. Yeah. OK. This happened in 1991. This is a bizarre story. Uh, this was at a theme park called King's Island. It was 9 o'clock, uh, guest of the park, Timothy Benning and his friend, William Hathcote, walked by a fountain near a bridge. Benning reached toward the water of the fountain, he was just gonna splash his friend, haha, you know, just reach into the fountain, splash your friend. But as soon as he touched the water... He was electrocuted. Oh, wow. There was an exposed wire just underneath the surface, which how the fuck is he going to know that, right? His friend jumped into the water to help him. Well, there you go. Yep, that, I mean, I understand what he was doing, but don't do that. So he gets electrocuted, and there was a worker at the park seeing, you know, what was going on here, and this park employee, Daryl Robertson, tried to help. But he was electrocuted as well. Damn. I just, I don't know. Like, did they not know that they were being shocked? Maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. They just knew they were in some type of distress. Jesus. I can
Chris:understand the second one helping the first. Cause you're right there. The third one, it'd be more like what the
Jeff:hell's going on. Oh, okay. So I said the first, the first guy was electrocuted. He actually lived. The other two died. So the people who tried to help got killed. An hour later at this same park, Candy Taylor. 32 years old, decided to take one more ride before the park closed. She chose a ride called the Flight Commander. And it just lifts you up in a little capsule thing and spins you around. It doesn't sound particularly fancy or maybe even all that scary. I don't know, it just goes around in circles. You would hate it. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. She was alone in her little car thing, whatever it is, evidently it can fit multiple people, but the ride was about to, er, the park was about to close, so she was alone, there weren't many people on it, nobody knows exactly how or why this happened, but she slipped from her harness inside the little car thing, and fell out of the thing. About 70 feet is what she fell and then died. So all that at that park, three people died just, you know, in about an hour's time. That's insane. It is.
Chris:I'm kind of surprised that they didn't close after the other people were
Jeff:electrocuted. Yeah. Doesn't that seem crazy? Like you would think that's going to warrant closing a little bit early. You would think so. All right. Number two, Krug or Krug Park. In Omaha, Nebraska, this happened in 1930. This is the deadliest roller coaster accident in American history. Holy shit. Can you imagine what a roller coaster was like in 1930? No, it's barely hanging on when it's brand new. I'm sure they were still barely driving cars. Yeah.
Chris:They barely knew what made it go on the roller coaster. You're, you're talking wooden. A wooden roller coaster, it'd be like a
Jeff:mine train kind of thing. Yeah, it would. Damn. Um, a bolt came loose in the roller coaster called the Big Dipper, caused four of its cars to fly off the track and plummet to the ground. They fell 35 feet, three of the four cars landed face down, four people died, another 17 were injured. And that is still the deadliest rollercoaster accident in U. S. history. Shit.
Chris:See, that's exactly how some of my dreams have gone, is I've been on the rollercoaster and it flies off the track. I've gone sailing through the whole park. Yeah, that's bad news.
Jeff:We are going to have to do a segment on your theme park dreams. So, you know, the, um, the shock wave ride at, at Six Flags in Texas, it's got two loops and it's not this way anymore, but one of the first times I wrote it, I noticed that all of the cars have the pull down thing, you know, like the bar that you pull down over you, but the back car had that. Yeah. Seatbelts, which when I saw that, that was a little alarming to me. It was like, Holy shit. I don't think I want to ride in the back car. Like, why do you have to have that extra thing? Right?
Chris:Yeah. I think they all have seatbelts now, but yeah, I remember that when only the back car had seatbelts, that was a little exciting to me. Like, Ooh, there's a little more danger.
Jeff:I want to ride this one. So you fly off the track.
Chris:Yeah, that was then though. See, that was before all the dreams came about.
Jeff:Do you like the loops? You like loops on roller coasters? I'm not a big fan of the loops. Generally.
Chris:Yeah. I mean, I'm fine with it. I did. That was a huge reason that I wouldn't write it for years. Before I ever did the first time was I couldn't stand
Jeff:the idea of going upside down, but
Chris:I just come out of the loop a little bit dizzy. Now that Batman ride that's a six flags where
Jeff:you're hanging underneath the track, it's got,
Chris:I think like three loops.
Jeff:Well, yeah, I think so. It's
Chris:got like three loops and then it's got these
Jeff:corkscrew, uh, yeah, you don't call them
Chris:loops, but corkscrew, whatever,
Jeff:like a barrel roll kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. You, you go upside down. Yeah. That ride is weird. Cause you can't exactly tell what's happening because you can't see the track like you can on a normal roller coaster, right? So. Subpar Talks, LGBT, subpartalks. com, www. independentjeff. com, www.
Chris:independentjeff. com, www. independentjeff. com, I don't know what happened. I know I was facing the wrong way one time. There was a lot of screeching and then I was thrown clear.
Jeff:That's great. Okay. Number one, we reached the top of the list. Now I do have a couple of honorable mentions. We'll get to those in a second. This is the worst. There are eight people who died. This is at Six Flags Great Adventure in something called the Haunted Castle in New Jersey. This was in 1984. It was a maze type thing. So it's, I don't know why they have haunted stuff in May of 1984, but whatever they did, and it was a maze, just go through, see if you can find your way out or whatever, but there was a fire in the maze. Evidently a 14 year old kid was trying to. Uh, light a cigarette and something happened. Some padding caught on fire and just lit the whole goddamn thing up. And when the fire started, there were 29 guests and employees trapped in the maze. There were hardly any exit lights. There was No smoke detectors. And a lot of this is constructed with plywood, so the fire's just burning all through that. There was foam, so that's catching on fire, and it just, in a few minutes, the whole thing was engulfed in flames, and eight people died, all of them teenagers. Damn. Now
Chris:see, that's a perfect example, even more so than Roaring Rapids, of how in the hell do you think that something can go wrong? Right. Going through a
Jeff:maze. Yeah. It's just so innocuous. Like, what the hell? You know? Yeah. No surprise in the aftermath of this tragedy, laws requiring sprinklers, smoke detectors, and other fire prevention methods passed across the country. And we've talked about this, whatever episode we did on, on the worst non natural disasters, fire was like the main feature of that. And there's so many regulations that came out of all that stuff. Absolutely. But it takes something like that, unfortunately, for that to happen. Yeah. I have a couple of honorable mentions here. Both of these are from Six Flags Over Texas. And I think you mentioned this in an episode not too long ago, but the Texas Giant at Six Flags. Yeah. A woman fell and was killed. According to one eyewitness account, the victim was described as overweight. Uh, she noted to the worker there that she was concerned that the bar had not properly secured. There were supposed to be three clicks. She said, I only heard one click and the person said, as long as it clicks, you're good. But evidently that's not the case. Big mistake. Yeah. And she was thrown from the roller coaster as it rounded a turn. Um, somebody tweeted that they saw the restraint had come undone. So who knows if it was ever, I mean, there was a gigantic lawsuit, of course. Uh, and Six Flags had to pay a bunch of money. I don't know if it, it sounds like it wasn't secure. It sounds like she was too big to be on the ride after this ride. And I know the sense cause I've ridden this, uh, they have a little seat outside the line, like, can you sit in this? Have you seen that? Oh yeah, yeah. I have seen that. So that, that was put in as a result of this accident. I
Chris:didn't realize that's what caused, what the reason was.
Jeff:Yeah, no, I didn't either, but it makes total sense, right? Yeah. Yeah. Each train's restraint system was modified. Seat belts were added and a seat replica was placed at the entrance, allowing riders to test before waiting in line. So there you go. Okay. And one more here. Have you ridden the, uh, Sombrero? I think it's called El Sombrero at Six Flags. I
Chris:have. I don't like it. It
Jeff:goes in circles. It goes in circles. Yeah. So it just, it's nothing big. It goes in circles. It goes up and down and it's just this gigantic sombrero and you're just riding around and I don't know, last 30 or 45 seconds, a minute maybe. It's not that big of a deal. It's a good ride with kids, like take your kids on it, uh, it's a good warm up ride, you know? I always, I always feel like I gotta get warmed up when I go to a, an amusement park. You can't just go straight for the biggest roller coaster in the park. You gotta get warmed up. Get your feet wet. OK. August 1968. Ride operator John Raymond Nelson. Approach the ride before the ride stopped so he could quickly unload the passengers. As he was approaching the ride, he lost, he lost his balance and fell below the ride. He fell beneath the ride. Oh. And, yeah, all the shit, the machinery just crushed him. Chewed him up. Yeah. And. Shoot him up. Yes. He was taken to Arlington Memorial Hospital, but he was pronounced dead on arrival. So this was
Chris:at Six Flags in Texas?
Jeff:Yup. Six Flags over Texas.
Chris:I'm surprised I never heard
Jeff:of that. No, I hadn't either. I was shocked, actually. Like that is, it's a really, really tame ride. It's not that big of a thing, but he's just trying
Chris:to, if you're riding, it's not so tame when you look at the underneath side,
Jeff:you know, next time I'm there, I'm going to look at the underneath. Yeah, damn. Can you imagine? Like he's just. I mean, he was a little overeager, right? Um, he just wanted to do a good job at letting people off and he just, well, he just tripped. Like, just tripped. What a freak accident. Damn. That's terrible. Anyway, it is, but there are some horrible amusement park disasters. So how do you feel about amusement parks now? A very unsettled, very unsettled. Yeah, it is. It's disturbing, troubling. Well,
Chris:and just that it's not. You know, there again, you get on some of these rides and you go, yeah, I know my harness could malfunction. I could fly off the track. But some of these are the kinds of accidents are the last thing you would ever expect. I mean, a cable coming loose and slicing
Jeff:your feet off. Yeah.
Chris:Like, yeah, I expected to fall 400 feet to my death, but not a cable to slice my feet off.
Jeff:Cancer, emphysema, birth defects, but not this. Uh, oh, I meant to mention this earlier. So between 4. 5, that's the average, that's the latest figure I could find, four and a half people die each year on amusement park rides in the US. So four and a half people. Yeah. So between four and five, is that like
Chris:counting a decapitation?
Jeff:So they're pretty safe considering everybody. I mean, the millions and millions of people who ride one only four or five. That's really
Chris:not bad, but I don't want to be, I don't want to be one of the four or the
Jeff:half. No, that's like, uh, when you drive to the airport. You've already survived the most dangerous part of your journey. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Well shit, I'm gonna think about all this stuff next time I'm at an amusement park and getting on these rides. Oh, I know.
Chris:I don't know. I don't know how to put that out of my head now, and I'm very concerned about going
Jeff:to sleep tonight. Make sure you take notes. Put a pen and paper on your nightstand and write the stuff down while it's fresh in your mind, because this is going to be good fodder for the show. Your messed up nightmares. My pain is everyone else's gain. All right, there you go. That is another show. If you like this kind of stuff, this is your type of podcast and you should, without a doubt, absolutely follow us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on because that way... You're gonna get new episodes delivered to you automatically every single Tuesday when they drop. And while you are there, we would really appreciate it if you would rate us, and of course, we'd like you to give us 5 stars. And while you're there, if you don't mind, go ahead and type something. The way some of these apps work is if you type something, that makes it easier for people to discover the show. Doesn't matter what you write. Uh, tell us your favorite amusement park ride. Um, any disasters you know of, whatever, you can write anything, we're gonna read it, uh, but put anything there you want. We have a website, that is subpartalks. com, there you can email us, you can leave us a voicemail. We are on social media. On Twitter, or X, do I just start calling it X? Is that really what it's called? That's really what it's called now. OK. No idea where that came from, but it is. I have no idea. All right, so let me start over. We are on social media. On X, we are at Subpar Talks. On Facebook, we are Subpar Talks. If you want to follow our personal Twitter, or Twitter, not Twitter, exes, if you want to follow our personal ex, or exes, or whatever the fuck it's called, ex account, I don't know. Yeah. Uh, on there, I am at Independent Jeff, and I am
Chris:at Chris Bradford TX.
Jeff:And we have some other social media links on our website. You can check those out. And last, but never ever least, share Subpar Talks on social media. Share it on X, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, because the more people we have listening to this show, the easier it is on us to get this content to you each and every single week. And so there you go. Amusement park disasters. Sleep tight, everybody, and enjoy your, uh... Your next visit to a theme park. I'm sure it'll go fine. Yeah. Buckle up. Make sure, uh, make sure you meet the height requirements and the weight requirements and test the seat. Some of those workers, like they look like they just rolled out of bed.
Chris:Yeah, and the way they've tested some, the way they've tested some of those harnesses, they just barely touch it, you know, I'm listening
Jeff:for the clicks. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Pull that bar down. There should be multiple clicks. Yeah, and test it out yourself. Try to pull it up. Try to get out. Yeah, try to get out. Yeah, seriously. OK, very good. That is another episode, and we will be back next week. Until then, so long. Bye bye.