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One of the great thrills of summer is a trip to an amusement park. From Disney World to Sea World to Universal Studios, theme parks enjoy a constant stream of delighted visitors all summer long.
Unfortunately, it’s not all fun and games. Each year, reports of injury and even death filter out of our country’s amusement parks. Mega rides, like extreme roller coasters and heart-stopping drop towers, are admittedly the main attraction. But they are also a potential threat to your health and safety. While theme park officials like to point out that incidents of injury and death are small when compared with the total number of visitors, the fact is that it still happens. And it can happen to you.
Here are a just a few examples:
• At Universal Studios, within a 4-month period, three passengers reported back pain and neck pain, and one reported a fractured back, after riding the Ripsaw Falls water-flume ride.
• On the DisneyWorld ride Peter Pan Flight, a man was pinned between ride vehicles while trying to board from the load area moving sidewalk.
• At SeaWorld, a 7-year-old boy’s right thumb was bitten by a dolphin. SeaWorld officials stated no changes to the attraction were planned because of the incident.
Employees of theme parks are at risk as well. Numerous incidents have occurred in which employees suffered injury or death while performing their jobs, including:
• A SeaWorld trainer was hospitalized after a killer whale injured the trainer’s leg by pinning him under the water twice.
• A DisneyWorld employee was run over and killed by a float as he played the character Pluto in that afternoon’s Magic Kingdom parade.
• An acrobat fell on his head during a SeaWorld water show performance of a stunt that required him to slide upside-down on a pole.
What many people do not realize is that, while ride safety at carnivals and fairs is regulated by the state of Florida, large amusement parks like DisneyWorld, SeaWorld and Universal Studios are exempt from state inspections. These parks are self-inspecting, in accordance with an agreement with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, called a ‘memorandum of understanding’, which calls for the parks to employ their own maintenance crews for inspection, report accidents and deaths to the state and conduct annual safety presentations.
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