Six Flags Over Georgia Accident - and Class Action Park and Other Amusement Parks in the 80s and 90s.

 

So as mentioned in my first post yesterday, I was already going to right a post about a documentary I watched over this rainy weekend on HBO Max called "Class Action Park" - the most dangerous amusement park in U.S. history.

I mean, I'm survived we 80s and 90s kids survived any of these amusement parks and water parks, because there were virtually no safety regulations followed or checked!

However, despite improved safety conditions and checked, accidents can still happen.

Because on Monday, a man was ejected from the train of the Goliath roller coaster and was killed. Six Flags has closed  9  similar rides throughout the US as a precaution.

So I grew up about 20 minutes from Kings Island in Cincinnati and I had a season pass. As a child, I was terrified of roller coasters and didn't ride them, but loved them as a young adult and adult.

I remember there were virtually no safety features anywhere, and if there were, the 16-year-olds  - many of whom were my friends and classmates - were running the rides and never checked to see if they were latched properly back then. They were too busy hanging out, flirting, and having a great time! 😂

Ah, 80s kids, the "latchkey" generation with little supervision - assuming everything and everyone was safe, though it so was NOT!

The biggest problem, however, is that at that time, they sold unlimited beer and liquor at Kings Island - which of course resulted in a plethora of accidents over time, such that they stopped selling it for a time, but they do again now, and I'm just waiting for another accident to happen.

I remember an incident in 1982 on Grad Night, a drunken kid tried to ride atop the elevator on the Eiffel Tower and was killed.  Later, another woman passed out drunk on a ride and was so lax, she slipped right through the bars. And in 1989, someone drunk fell in the water pond and was electrocuted, as was the security guard who tried to save him, due to an open electrical wire in the pond. Then, of course, The Bat was shut down due to multiple injuries, just being a rough ride.

Even by the time my daughter was born, though things had vastly improved, there were still issues at times - just not as many.

In fact, true story - on July 9, 2006, my exhusband, myself, and his son and my daughter all went to Kings Island. At that time Paramount Studios had bought it and renamed many of the rides after movies and it was generally considered safer.

My ex wanted to ride "Son of Beast" that day.

Although I loved the original The Beast, there was something about the angles on that particular coaster I didn't like, so despite loving roller coasters, I never rode it.

My ex and his son were heading out after lunch and ride it.

Of course, I wasn't going to ride it, and my daughter was wary of it already, too, so we were going to do something else.

However, I got a chill and said "Please don't ride that today, okay? I'm telling you, something bad is going to happen. Promise me you and K won't ride it. I don't think he's tall enough anyway yet."

At first, he laughed, but at the time, he also knew that when I got that sense that strong, to listen to it.

So they didn't -- but sure enough, about the time they would've gotten on it, Son of Beast had an accident injuring 27 people!

We suddenly heard sirens and saw ambulances driving through the park, and when we asked people what happened, they said they shut the ride down, multiple injuries.

My ex-husband turned to me, white as a sheet - "OMG, it WAS that sense you get sometimes!"

A cracked wooden support beam and fractured vertical members in the Rose Bowl (the large elevated helix) caused a 5-inch sag in the track structure. As a result, the train slammed into this damaged section at high speed and riders experienced a severe "pothole effect," comparable to hitting a brick wall.

The ride never reopened. 

(I don't get "senses" like that as much as I used to, not in years, with the exception of my own car accident a month ago. However, I had no idea it was going to be a car crash - just that "something bad is about to happen, but it's going to be okay." First one I've had in literally years.)

Back to the safety of the rides in the 80s and 90s (or the lack thereof), Mark and I just watched a documentary called "Class Action Park" on HBO Max this past weekend.

It's about the most infamous amusement and water park of all time, "Action Park" in northern New Vernon, New Jersey.

So of course I can't share the full documentary here, but here are the highlights - narrated by former teen employees, some of whom are now comedians - so it's both hilarious and disturbing!

I mean, you're laughing because it's so anything goes and crazy unsafe rides - to the degree that if you didn't come back to school in the Fall with a battle scar from Action Park, then you weren't "tough" enough. 😂

Now - some of these rides shown in the video don't seem that bad because we have safer versions today (we hope), so in that way, many of these things were ahead of their time, only no one cared or even checked for safety.

Others should've never existed in the first place for humans or any living creature! 😂

This video doesn't even cover it, you have to see the full documentary to get it - drunken people setting stuff on fire or  trying to jump their boats over other boats, but landing instead on people's heads, chasing employees down in the race cars - we're talking full-on anarchy chaos! 

While watching it, I said to Mark "Yeah, so ...  you and your brother, S, would've been all about this park, growing up, had it been near Detroit, wouldn't you?"  😂

Like I said, you really have to see the full documentary to get a full picture of how dangerous it actually was - there were at least 7 known fatalities from this park in and a plethora of other injuries, some of them permanently disabling!

So why - and how did this go on so long without anyone shutting it down?

That's a good question - here's what went wrong.

For starters, the park's creator, Gene Mulvihill, took funding for the park from disgraced Wall Street trader, Bob Brennan, who was banned from Wall Street for selling penny junk stocks and bonds.

(I mean, how sociopathic do you have to be to get kicked off Wall Street in the 1980s, I ask you? 😂)

Both men were nearly of an anarchist mindset, believing in no rules and total freedom, no government intervention.

1).  Instead of hiring actual engineers to design and build the rides, they took any Joe Schmoe off the street to design and build the rides. 

2) No one would insure him, so Gene created his own fake insurance company in the Cayman Islands  which didn't exist.

3) They only had to report to the state "serious" injuries, but left the word "serious" up to park interpretation.

4) The park performed no safety inspections at all. They did have state safety inspections, Gene often gave lavish gifts to the community, particularly lawmakers, so nothing was ever cited or done. The park also brought in tons of tourist income to the tiny rural city of New Vernon, New Jersey, so many looked the other way.

5)  All attraction employees were under the age of 18 and often went off leaving rides - especially at the waterpark - unsupervised or did nothing to help struggling kids.

6). With lawsuits, Gene never settled and would drag out cases until they went to court, so none of them were ever settled - and in fact, one of the fatalities was blamed on a rock in the park the kid's head hit, rather than the ride itself he was thrown from! (This despite the state safety inspection previously ordering them to remove the rocks.) Thus, Gene - and his fake insurance company -  never paid a dime to the families of the dead or permanently disabled.

7). They sold alcohol without ever checking IDs or putting a limit on clearly inebriated patrons.

8) Gene never paid state or federal taxes, which went on for years, until finally he went to prison for 10 years for tax evasion, insurance fraud, and money laundering - but never for the fatalities or injuries that occured at his park.

Ah, white-collar crime that "harm's no one" (but actually harms the most amount of people) - Trump's favorite!

Speaking of Trump, he very nearly invested in Action Park himself, but pulled out at the last minute after a fatality had just occurred.

Once again - how sociopathic and fraudulent do you have to be, such that Trump won't even invest in it? 😂

And I thought Kings Island was bad!

Good Lord, how in the heck did we survive this stuff in the 80s?  😂

See, this is why we need a good balance between government oversight (for health and safety, consumer protection, and justice that preferably money can't buy you out of) VS. capitalism - when either side goes unchecked for too long and wields too much power, we have major issues!

For the rest, watch the documentary!