Sandusky police investigating accident at Cedar Point near Raptor

But then CP would open itself up to a lawsuit if a fence climber gets tangled in the barbed wire and injures themselves.

Certainly a possibility. I'm not advocating a change, just showing differences between similar rides at Cedar Fair parks.

I was just reading an article where his mother said he always enjoyed going to CP prior to school starting, and had apparently made a ritual of it over the years, since he was a kid even. I can see that as working against him, possibly becoming too comfortable and thinking he knew the area well enough to retrieve his items without incident. His mother even made a comment that he did so in a thoughtless moment. One of the last things that I'd imagine would cross a persons mind when getting up in the morning to head out to CP would be that you weren't going to make it back home.

Now there is a face and human story to this, we are all imperfect and capable of making really stupid decisions, we just hope and pray that luck is on our side when our brains aren't. Unfortunately, in this situation luck wasn't there to make up for the bad choice that was made. I hope everyone can heal and move forward.

On the one hand: I feel so sorry for all those affected: his family, his friends, the riders on that train, the park employees first on the scene. It's a tragic loss, more so because of how easily it could have been prevented.

But (and my ASD is probably raising its head here), it wasn't a thoughtless moment, nor not having his thinking cap on. It was a deliberate choice to scale a fence clearly not intended as decorative to enter an area repeatedly marked as restricted to access a huge piece of machinery.

Pete said:

The Raptor restraints don't have to press down on your body, it's okay if the restraint is a little loose. The mechanism has "clicks" that lock it, because of body proportions it may feel a little loose because your body size falls right between the "clicks". No danger of falling out at all.

And yes, Raptor will open today.

I've ridden Raptor several times both this season and last and the fit of the restraints had always been the same until that ride. My body proportions haven't changed so I'm not sure what to make of it. All I can say it was different and not what I would classify as normal. Maybe it was just that particular seat or train but it just didn't feel quite right.

What's been said has been said. The 'power of the situation' is a topic of endless discussion for all of us, and I have to give a nod to Ensign's words as well. I did not know Mr. Young personally, but I've quickly learned in the past 16 hours or so how well liked and respected he was in our community. We certainly would have crossed paths sooner than later.

That said, changing gears ever so slightly;

One thing I find annoying, but not surprising, is the subtle nods to "danger" the media makes when presenting the story. Not all, but some.

For example, CNN has a brief story about the incident here, but as you read, embedded within the story are links to "To year old dies after riding roller coaster", and "Theme park ride breaks, sends riders flying".

The subtle message being presented your brain is to associate Cedar Point and amusement parks with fear and the risk of death. Ridiculous nonsense and irresponsible to connect these types of situations.

Quite frankly, I think the best thing the park can do is to open Raptor as soon as possible. Doing otherwise would only fan needless embers of fear about the ride (which to you and I seems obvious, but trust me, not to all).

This whole situation is horribly sad for all involved. Worse, it may have been prevented with a second sign. Hopefully we will see additional signage to advise guests about retrieving lost items.

"Lose Something? Visit Park Operations Office. We search daily for lost items."

Most guests likely do not even know help is available to them if they lose something. When I worked on Magnum, we walked under the track multiple times a day to collect lost items.

Plus, given the continual "park not responsible for lost items" notices via signage and ride operator spiels, it may not be 100% obvious that lost articles are indeed searched for by staff with extra effort to try and return those items.

Of course, another option would be to install metal detectors and free lockers like they have now at Universal Orlando. I just went a few days ago to ride the coasters. Each one has free lockers for 90 minutes to store all loose items while you ride. Pretty straight forward and I bet the amount of lost stuff has dropped to nearly zero.

I saw coverage of this on Today and Good Morning, America (but not on CBS This Morning), this morning.

Both ran right about the ten minute mark in the 7 am hour.

Today's coverage was pretty straightforward: Natalie Morales read the copy over a brief video package, covering what happened and the park's statement.

GMA, on the other hand, threw to Gio Benitez, whose story was a little... let's call it enthusiastic. Shots of the coaster, the victim, graphics, footage from the police press conference, and also Gio providing this over POV footage of Raptor: "...this video from the park's own website shows this coaster traveling at speeds of sixty miles an hour!"

At the top of the piece, as Gio noted the victim was riding "...this coaster...." we saw footage of Gatekeeper. I don't expect most people to immediately identify types of coasters, but I'd like to think someone would have noticed the people on "...this coaster..." were sometimes under the track and sometimes beside the track....

Kevinj said:

The subtle message being presented your brain is to associate Cedar Point and amusement parks with fear and the risk of death. Ridiculous nonsense and irresponsible to connect these types of situations.

I think that the links are chosen/generated based on keywords in the text. I'm guessing that CNN doesn't have fluff pieces about amusement parks and that they only report about the bad things that happen. I don't think they are trying to feed you subliminal messages.

Yeah, the "Featured Links" in any news article anymore 9 times out of 10 are either fearmongering or sensationalistic clickbait that's chosen based on keywords or seemingly at random and is more for ad revenue and link trafficking than anything else.

The sad thing is I pretty much expected that exact style of delivery from Good Morning America. Not so much from that show in particular, but that specific enunciation and emphasis is pretty much classic "BE AFRAID OF THIS THING, BE VERY AFRAID" tactics, whether intentional or not.

That and the acting scared and appalled that the park has videos of their own rides going at the speeds that they're spec'd to go at.

Drama, fear, panic sell. They get ratings. They also turn customers away from businesses, hurting the economy, but hey, at least the network gets ad revenue.

*facepalm*

First of all I feel sorry for this guys family and people who knew him. With that out of the way, he clearly ignored several warnings and pure logic to get something he should never have lost while riding a coaster. To think this man was a 5th grade teacher bothers me even more. This will only result in each of us paying more to go to amusement parks in the future when laws say fences must be a minimum of 12 feet high and electrified with warning buzzers and lights when someone comes within 3 feet.

Use your head people, use common sense. All this man had to do was go to lost and found and make a claim and all this would have never happened.

Did I mention he was a teacher? What is wrong with this world?

coasterJay said:

Did I mention he was a teacher? What is wrong with this world?

What does that have to do with anything? One moment of carelessness is all you need to be able to judge him as unworthy to be a teacher?

Walt said:

What does that have to do with anything? One moment of carelessness is all you need to be able to judge him as unworthy to be a teacher?

I guess you are right Walt, one moment of carelessness is all it takes. A stupid little mistake like not obeying rules or reading signs. We respect teachers and look up to them. Maybe he was a great teacher, But this is a person who should have known better.

It's a sad thing to happen at such an amazing place. The best thing we can do is respect the death despite the stupidity these circumstances are brought upon us. Opening the ride back up today is big for the park, they had to do it. The park handles these situations well, my brother broke his wrist and fractured his other on snake river falls a few years back, and the park helped us and handled it well giving my family free tickets to return. I just think the park is great with these type of issues. It's sad but we gotta move on from it

Was the victim hit by a component on the train...or by the legs/feet of a rider? I had not heard anything about injuries to anyone on the train.

The reports indicate it was the train that hit him.

Sandusky Police stated that he was struck by the train.

How is it possible for the train to hit him and not the riders, when the riders are in a better position to hit him?

Maybe the seat was empty where the train hit him.