Guest taken to hospital after metal object falls off TTD

It likely won’t affect Wicked Twister at all. They are two completely different rides and the closing has been planned for awhile. They’re not going to change the timeline for that.

I was talking to my wife about this last night, and I could foresee some additional safety measures installed in the queue, primarily some kind of cage or netting over the top of the queue lines. That’s if the park reopens the ride next year. Which at this point I suppose anything is a possibility.

I really hope we can ride Dragster again someday. I don't know.

mgou58 said:

I was talking to my wife about this last night, and I could foresee some additional safety measures installed in the queue, primarily some kind of cage or netting over the top of the queue lines. That’s if the park reopens the ride next year. Which at this point I suppose anything is a possibility.

I would assume it would have to be a metal fence/cage if they went this route. I would think a protective netting wouldn’t stop a small metal object at high speeds.

Is a rerouting or replacement of the queue a possibility?

mgou58 said:

It likely won’t affect Wicked Twister at all.

I'm not so sure about that. With WT slated to close 9/6, and TTD guaranteed closed for the remainder of the year, that puts them down two coasters already. If you lose another one anytime after that, you're down 3 coasters, and that's going to tick a lot of people off.

I think he was referring to WT possibly closing earlier with it being a launched Intamin. I'd doubt that would happen unless the investigation quickly determines it would need to.

I think number of coasters running is the least of the parks worries now.

$99 Gold Passes + even more limited ride availability. I definitely think this was the right move by the park, but this indeed has the makings of the scariest Haunt season yet.

Thabto said:

I think number of coasters running is the least of the parks worries now.

Oh, I agree strongly. Their number one concern should be with the victim of the accident. As that's where my concern is too. I simply asked a question. It's had to at least cross their mind about being down 2 coasters for the final 2 months of the operating season.

The issue is that the removal of WT has been planned and is likely part of a bigger project that also has a timeline. And they’ve likely already set things in motion with whatever is coming to that area so it’s not as simple as reversing the decision to close a ride.

I can't see them extending WT through the entire final 2 months, but I could definitely see them extending it an extra 2-3 weeks.

First, I hope that the guest is able to recover. It's a very serious injury at best, fatal at worst. To go to a park and come away with such an awful injury is something I've never even considered, but it must be absolutely terrifying for the family of the guest. The park should be thorough in it's investigation, and it sounds like they will be. Personally, I think they'll end up finding it was due to operational/maintenance oversight, if they don't already suspect it. It's just my opinion, but I believe Knotts has continued to operate Xcelerator (correct me if I'm wrong) and both Hershey and SF Great Adventure continue to operate Storm Runner and Kingda Ka. I might be way off base, but I feel like if they suspected a design defect, those rides would probably not be in operation, certainly not Xcelerator in the same chain.

As to the loss of the ride...

During our July week this year, TTD held the longest standby line in the park, even with strong operations. It's enormous FLP and exit row lines (the longest we waited in, despite 50/50 seating), combined with the amount of guests that just sat and watched it run, made it either the most popular or second most popular ride in the park, as recently as this summer. With capacity crowd level days ahead through Halloween and $250 a day FLP sell outs both likely, it'll certainly be missed.

I believe they'll announce it's permanent closure this winter (I predict in some Friday afternoon statement). It's an irreplaceable ride, and I will miss it very much. CP is greatly reduced without it. I hope I'm wrong.

I still think it's crazy early to speculate on the permanent closure of the ride.

Whether the ride ever opens again or not will likely depend on a number of factors including the outcome of the injured guest, what the cause of the incident was, what improvements would have to be made and the cost of such improvements, Intamin's response to the incident (given their track record, I wouldn't expect much from them), litigation, if having the ride open effects the cost of the parks insurance policy, etc. If the park feels it's in their best interest to close the ride for good, they will. If they see some benefit to reopening it in the future, they will.

1000 years of force said:

Everybody conveniently chooses to forget that the news (TV, Radio, Newspaper) is not in the business of telling us the news, they are in the business of selling advertising.

That's some really lazy thinking. The two things are not mutually exclusive. Why is it that everyone has to distill everything into a one-sided absolute?

I do want to apologize if any of my posts are inconsiderate. I am autistic, and while I mean well, sometimes I lack the ability to make complete or rationale thoughts.

No worries! I'm also affected by autism and have those same issues.

Thabto said:

Whether the ride ever opens again or not will likely depend on a number of factors including the outcome of the injured guest, what the cause of the incident was...

Complicating that, I think, is the fact that nobody can find the actual object that struck the woman. If you watch the bodycam footage, at one point a couple of CP people are talking about it - eyewitnesses said it was large, but extensive searches of the area yeilded nothing. One of the CP people speculate that, since there was a large crowd around the woman after she was struck, that it's possible somebody picked up the object and walked off with it. If that's the case, it's unlikely it'll ever be found.

James Parker jr said:

I believe they'll announce it's permanent closure this winter (I predict in some Friday afternoon statement). It's an irreplaceable ride, and I will miss it very much. CP is greatly reduced without it. I hope I'm wrong.

I'm kind of surprised you reached this conclusion after all the points you raised.

(1) All other Intamin accelerator coasters are still running... as of today;

(2) the investigation could conclude it was a preventable maintenance issue rather than a design/manufacturing issue;

(3) Despite it's known flaws (down time, maintenance costs), It is still an -extremely- popular ride at a park with strong competition.

In any event, it is far too early to speculate on this. And for me, far too depressing as well.

If the news you watch is only in the business of selling advertising, you're watching either 1) the wrong news, or 2) not enough of other news. Both is certainly possible.

That said, with regards to the ride's future, of course it's too early to say one way or another, but I would personally not be surprised either way.

We don't know that the object has not been found. We only know (per the bodycam video) that in that moment of time the object had not yet been found, aside from a bolt that probably held the object on the ride.

However, there is this, which was posted in the comment section of the article from cleveland.com:

Take it with a grain of salt, but it does match some of the eye-witness descriptions of the object (L-shaped, rusty, heavy). It's also not inconceivable that some d-bag of a guest would pick up the object in the chaos and decide to keep it.

Anyone here know Kip?

I bet a few interested parties are tracking him down as we type.