Guest taken to hospital after metal object falls off TTD

Regardless of whether the physical piece that hit the victim is ever found, a simple deconstruction of the train should tell them exactly what piece is missing. Process of elimination.

Again, that's just my autistic thinking, and today has been a long day....so my thinking could be construed. I found out I have a mass in my chest that will need to be removed and require a week of hospitalization.

Yeah whether they are able to physically recover the actual piece I would imagine they'll be able to confidently figure out what was involved.

Assuming that's the object, someone that knows Dragster should be able to find where it came from pretty easily. Seems like a close inspection of the ride would find something that large missing even without first recovering it. I honestly don't know what that is. Is it one of the Magnets from the under side of the train or something that would hold said magnets? It does not look like a copper brake fin from the track although maybe it is. It does not look like anything from the wheel area which is sort of where I was assuming the issue might have been since you know they like to install those backwards. :-P Maybe the witness reports of a bolt flying through the air and an L shaped bracket are BOTH correct because it certainly looks like that would have been secured by two bolts.

Is there any possibility whatsoever that the ride did not throw the object? I'm thinking at this point, probably not since the park announced closure for the rest of the season.

That angle iron looks to be about the same dimension as the piece that holds the brake fins in position on the brake run.

Took this from a POV... The one side looks to have the through-holes for mounting the fins (which are used later on down the brake run) and perhaps the longer side is welded into position? Tried to find some better, 'real' images of the track up close to be sure, but have not found just yet and about to head out the door.

But appears to be consistent with the piece shown above. Perhaps fatigue failure of a section of this mounting bracket, in which the train turned into a 120mph missile when it hit it. If it hit it off-center, it could have hit it off to the side quite easily into the queue line.

Could be I am still skeptical on it. A good reason why the ride is down for the remainder of the season could be because they don't actually know what it is from yet or if they do, just how it came off the ride.

99er said:

Could be I am still skeptical on it. A good reason why the ride is down for the remainder of the season could be because they don't actually know what it is from yet or if they do, just how it came off the ride.

Are you seriously suggesting they weren't able to perform a visual inspection and know exactly what piece had come off the ride by the end of the day of the accident?

That could be it. Seems odd there's no color to it though. I know the paint job on Dragster is not fresh, but what you've circled there looks painted in your picture and in reality I believe. The pieces in the picture added above by 99er also seem longer and welded (or otherwise attached) to multiple track cross members.

I think the actual brake fins have been removed from a lot of the early parts of the brake run since very early on in the ride's life. But the brackets remained and as far as I know they don't really serve a purpose unless they decided for some reason to add fins back to them at some point. I'm assuming, since it does not have the fin attached to it that it is from the earlier part of the brake run.

If your theory is correct, I'd think Maverick and other Intamin rides with Magnetic brakes underneath the train and copper brake fins attached to the track could potentially require more routine inspection of whatever holds those brackets to the track. The track on those brake runs does shake quite a bit. I doubt this is the sort of thing that is inspected daily although I honestly have no idea.

Have any of the other parks with Intamin Accelerators taken any action as a result of this incident, or has it been business as usual for them?

I'm especially curious about KBF and SFGAd, given that the former is a fellow Cedar Fair park and the latter has the coaster that is most similar to TTD.

I do not believe any other similar coasters have been taken down for inspection.

The picture of the brackets that Chris found a picture of (or whatever you want to call them) do not line up with the picture I posted above. The bolt placement does not line up, not to mention the complete lack of paint.

I honestly find it very hard to believe they don't know what came off the ride, regardless of whether they have they recovered said object. As other have noted, it's a simple matter of elimination. Whatever is missing is what came off, and I would certainly think that has been a non-stop round-the-clock search from the minute this incident occurred.

The "how" is an entirely different story altogether.

Again...please keep in mind the picture posted above (by myself) has in no way been verified as "it". It just happens to fit the little bit of info we have heard.

I think you're right Kevinj. Lack of paint, closer bolt placement, short length of the piece in comparison all point to it being something other than the bracket that the copper fins attach to. I've watched the POV lots of times and I don't see anything else long the track that it could have been.

MichaelB said:

Are you seriously suggesting they weren't able to perform a visual inspection and know exactly what piece had come off the ride by the end of the day of the accident?

Uh no. I am suggesting that IF the object in question isn't something immedielty identified from Maintenance, that they kept the ride closed until they can for 100% certainty know where the object came from. If it came off the ride at all.

If the object in question came from the track in anyway, I find it odd that there wasn't any damage to the area around it that wouldn't have caused the next train to run into/over it. I imagine the next train or few trains were dispatched until the platform crew was made aware of what was going on. Unless of course when the hit happened, a loud enough bang could have been overheard by the platform crew. Which I doubt happened because I have yet to read/see anywhere that a witness remembers hearing a loud bang and from experience, even a small lightweight object getting hit by a coaster train produces a very loud noise.

It will be interesting to see what the part really is that hit her if it is ever located. If it truly was a bolt, I am very curious if it actually was a part of TTD. I'm sure everyone here has seen the you tube roller coaster pranks with a "Missing bolt". I certainly hope it was not someone who had the object on them somehow as a prank and then it flew out of their hand on the way down. After the people eating Tide pods, as a prank on the internet, I seriously wouldn't put it past someone to try the bolt prank on someone. Though if that was the case, I would think CP would be revealing that.

The only reason I rely on the idea that it came off the ride (in some way) is from the park's comment. They are, for good reason, very careful about what they say, especially within this type of context.

The park's initial release specifically said that a part came off a train; not the structure. I can't fathom any reason they would be so specific without the knowledge that it did, indeed, come from the train.

We could debate what "small metal object" actually means until the cows come home, but there is no debate when it is stated that said object was 1) attached, and 2) somehow became unattached from the train.

The brake fins on the track are flat pieces of copper that are about a meter long, maybe around a foot tall. That thing in that photo that no one can prove has anything to do with the accident is not that.

It's also not something that I can find in any of the photos I have of the trains, even in those that are stripped down from maintenance tours. If it were something from the bottom, it would have to get around a bunch of wheels and the fiberglass shell.

Did anyone ever check to see if it's something that came off of an Iron Dragon train?

Very good point about Iron Dragon.

This all makes me so sad—sad for the victim, and (at the risk of sounding like a dork) sad for a ride that’s brought me a lot of joy over 19 years.

Although I’m biased by my love for the ride, I think the most likely scenario is that TTD reopens next year. TTD is still very popular/iconic, and other rides have suffered more gruesome injuries to actual riders and still reopened (e.g. Perilous Plunge, The Smiler).

The only way I see that changing is if the accident investigation reveals TTD has extensive flaws that can’t be fixed easily. But given that Cedar Fair’s older Xcelerator and Six Flags’ taller, faster Kingda Ka are both still operating as of today, the operators don’t seem to think that’s very likely.

I’ve read a lot of comments about relocating the queue, but wouldn’t that fix also entail relocating the midway that runs next to the launch track, not to mention the grandstand? I think that would be difficult and antithetical to the ride’s theme, which is part of what makes the ride special.

I know this isn’t politically correct to say, but with the park approaching what could be its most crowded fall season ever, the loss of TTD and WT is significant. I do wonder if the park will reevaluate WT’s closure, which I realize depends on why it’s closing in the first place.

Jeff said:

Did anyone ever check to see if it's something that came off of an Iron Dragon train?

Anything, of course, is possible, but the eye witness accounts (and I know, they are not anywhere near 100% reliable) state that they saw something flying into the queue from the ride.

I just can't imagine the park would release such a specific initial comment that they weren't sure of when a human life hangs in the balance. They didn't say the person was hit by something, they said that the person was hit by something that came off a train from Dragster.

I also cant imagine what from Iron Dragon could fall to cause such serious damage. That ride is not that close to the queue of TTD, especially considering the modest speeds it is travelling. I don't have the time or patience to do the physics, but that seems to be a bit of a stretch of the imagination at best. I would think if that was in the realm of possibility that ID would be shut down as well.

If someone actually took the metal object that caused the injury, wouldn't that be grounds for charges if the person is ever found? It is evidence and could perhaps yield clues about what happened. Why would somebody do that?

That "L" shaped object in Kip's pictures, if it is the piece that struck the victim, has two holes that likely are there for fastening it in some way to another object either by threaded studs with bolts or studs with cotter pins, or some other means. At any rate it is safe to say it is not something that is supposed come ajar from it's mounting. Point being, perhaps there are multiple pieces such as bolts or pins that are sheered off, small debris could be lost in that brush area to the right of the track.

As an aside, in the early 80's I worked at a nut & bolt distributor. On occasion a customer would order a certain "grade" of fastener such as grade 2, 5, 8, etc...., and due to lack of availability a lesser grade material fastener would be substituted to fill the order. Likely all these scenarios will be part of the investigation.

Where the heck did that Kip picture guy get that object if it wasn't newly dropped there? It's certainly not common to find things like that anywhere around the vicinity.

Am i the only person that thinks the item pictured is awfully clean so to speak? If that really came off and did the damage to this person that seems to have happened, theres not a speck of blood on it anywhere from what I can tell. Seems mighty suspicious.