Guest taken to hospital after metal object falls off TTD

Well because it's illegal to impersonate a doctor.

Ouch, seeing cerebral material is not a good sign. Prayers for this woman and her family, and I hope they can determine what went wrong on TTD and prevent it from ever happening again.

Steve4Hockey said:

Ouch, seeing cerebral material is not a good sign.

Where did you see that?!?

Joe E said:

As For the nurse, while she’s covered under Good Samaritan I’d have to imagine once CP EMS shows up it’s their show no matter what. They can’t let anyone else help. Even if CP EMS was doing something not by the book or there is someone there with more medical expertise, to defer to them could open up an even bigger lawsuit especially if that advice was wrong.

I'm no expert on medical law. However, I can't see that being true. It is my understanding that if you are a medical professional and you see someone improperly or inadequately providing care or treatment, whether with intent to do so or not, you have a responsibility to step in.

The same thing applies to virtually all professional fields as far as I know. It's part of the ethics you agree to when you start employment in your respective field. It is to prevent people from becoming the victim of someone else's shortcomings regardless if they are accidental or malicious.

The problem with bystanders as help is sometimes they tell you they are one thing but they aren't quite what they tell you. It's a very tricky situation. My husband has been told off by a few nurses who claimed they knew better than him while on scene only to find they there STNAs which have absolutely nowhere near the training or education he has, but they can still call themselves a nurse. I also know that the quality of the EMS department at Cedar Point may be a bit lacking based on the personal experiences of some friends who have been tended to by them but pretty much any department is going to have some low quality applicants and in the current state of the economy we don't always have the pleasure of being able to weed them out.

EMS in the general sense is under-paid, often under-trained and not well funded by the jurisdictions they serve.

I'm wondering how this even happened in the first place. This persons life will likely never be the same again. And this isn't the first time people have been injured by this ride, although this is the most serious. There have also been a couple of instances where pieces of the launch cable hit riders. At what point does this ride become too much of a liability? And throw in the fact that uptime is low plus the park is not exactly on good terms with the manufacturer. The fate of this ride will likely be determined on the outcome of the victim. I don't see it opening again for at the least the remainder of this season. And I'm thinking some modifications will have to be made to the queue such as either moving it further away from the track or some type of covering over the queue.

Shane Denmark said:

Steve4Hockey said:

Ouch, seeing cerebral material is not a good sign.

Where did you see that?!?

It is in the CP Supplementary Report the nurse filled out and photographed and posted online. I have the image but doubt it is appropriate to post it here considering.

Thabto said:

I'm wondering how this even happened in the first place. I'm pretty sure this was 100% preventable. A bolt should not come loose. I'm thinking some corners were cut in the daily inspections. They should also be checking for metal fatigue during those inspections.

I think it's far too early to start speculating. We have no clue still what flew off. We've read bolt, we've read small piece of metal, we've read whole wheel.

I wouldn't say it was 100% preventable. Nothing is 100% preventable when dealing with machines - to put it simply, **** happens. There's only so much you can check with daily, visual inspections. Performing non-destructive inspection for metal fatigue every morning isn't viable.

I don't know how much the park will end up revealing beyond "a part became disengaged" from the ride, unless they are for some reason they are required to discuss details.

I'd say it is dependent on whether the lawsuit is settled or goes to court.

^^^Exactly. Things break, and unfortunately this thing broke in a catastrophic manner. Could it have been prevented? Very possibly. But these are large machines with many moving parts, so saying that corners were cut is purely speculation. I'm confident the park maintains a routine inspection schedule, and sadly this failure mode was missed at some point.

Thabto said:

I'm thinking some corners were cut in the daily inspections.

That's completely irresponsible and non-qualified conjecture. You have no basis to state such a thing.

Kevinj said:

I don't know how much the park will end up revealing beyond "a part became disengaged" from the ride, unless they are for some reason they are required to discuss details.

I think any report made by the Ohio Department of Agriculture would be public record.

I watched the body cam video in full and I certainly have a lot of questions about what happened, and how the park handled it in the moment; but I don’t want to make any wrong assumptions. I just hope everything turns out okay for the woman who was injured. Very scary situation.

Cargo Shorts said:

That is kind of a sticky situation. Say there was a trauma surgeon there in line and started to render help. What happens when EMS shows up? How do they know he really is a trauma surgeon?

Bottom line is: a bystander who "tries to help" is covered from liability because of the Good Samaritan law. So, even if he/she screws up and makes things worse, he/she can't be sued or held accountable.However, the official EMS crew CAN be held liable - and that's likely why they got angry when the nurse tried to step in. If she keeps them from doing their job, and ends up making the situation worse, she walks away...and Cedar Point gets sued.

I get that they cannot let bystanders help with treatment, but the NP was also trying to point out that they were seriously lacking basic proper patient transport and care with a head injury. I also understand that the queue lines definitely made things difficult, but the victim was haphazardly dragged onto the gurney without as much as a neck brace. I know they wanted to get her out of there due to the seriousness of her injury, which is why they should have been prepared with basic equipment. I hope CP really looks into their emergency response procedures and ensures basic life saving/serious injury materials are always accessible for their EMS crew. I'm not asking them for a whole emergency room, but they could have at least had something as simple as a neck stablizer. They also need training and practice on how to safely remove an injured victim from a queue and if it's not possible for a certain ride, the queue needs to be adjusted.

I wish they would address measures they are taking to help ensure their EMS team is prepared in the event of future emergencies, but I don't expect to see anything of the sort.

I can't stop imagining what their response could look like if a larger emergency took place with multiple victims. Thank goodness it hasn't yet!

At that point, it wasn't CP, it was Sandusky. I assume the ambulance was right outside the maintenance gates across from the Dragster motor room.

I'm sure it seems like they should have a neck brace, but that hardly fits the type of emergency they have. At the beginning it was the inside the park medics, who probably mostly deal with heat exhaustion and the occasional heart attack. They aren't preparing for car accident victims. That said, I have no idea what is inside the standard EMS kit, perhaps you could tell us?

Is this the part where some of us pretend to know what Cedar Point's emergency response procedures are and the basics of trauma care with regards to an injury that none of us really know the extent/details of?

Or can we just skip that part...

As Jeff mentioned above, there was a point where the accident was being taken care of by Sandusky, not CP. You know that scene in movies when the FBI comes in and takes over a situation that the local police were watching over and some local cop throws a fit? This was like that...only in this case the "local cop" wasn't even in a uniform and (for all the medics knew) was just some lady saying she was a cop and trying to commandeer a situation when really she was, at some point, just getting in the way.

And while she went on a social media rant and publicly released medical information pertaining to the victim (which I'm pretty sure doesn't exactly get put in the "this is ethical" box), other professionals who were there responded in this way:

Super glad there were a number of guests in line (including her) with the proper training to assist while help was on the way.