ValleyFair Ride Accident (5/21/06) 4PM

Not necessarily, Gomez. We don't know the extent of the hitch failure, and I am not that familiar with the way Morgan's hitches go together. It is possible that there is a controlled failure point engineered into the hitch (something like the shear pin in the top of a Wave Swinger) so that if a car should stop suddenly, the hitch will come apart instead of jerking the whole train to a stop. I don't know if they did that on Wild Thing, either intentionally or unintentionally, but there are lots of examples of those kinds of failure points in other applications of fail-safe design. Kind of like crumple zones in your automobile, or fuses in an electrical circuit, or a shear pin in a rotating device. You have a weak link designed to fail in order to prevent a more serious failure from happening.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

After a full days of school for me I happened to run into someone in my History and Art class (same person) who was actually at ValleyFair yesterday. She said that her and her friends were going to go on WildTHing and just ride it a few times before they left, but instead went on ripcord and then went over to WildThing. She said she saw a helicopter and heard a bunch of abulances on her way TO the wildthing and it was roped off and some lady was there saying the ride was closed for the day. she said she could barley see the car from where she was standing and said at that point it didn't have a tarp on it. Then, she said the MOVED the car. so from what I understand is that the ride did-NOT crash at the last breaking point. I still didn't belive her untill she wipped out her digital camera, and showed me a 30 video clip of the car (now w/ a tarp over it) when she was driving by when she was leaving the park.

I live 30 minutes away from VF & I happened to be in the park. Here's how everything went:

I was by Panda Express meeting up with some family for a bit while my friends were over at Wild Thing. They called me when they got off saying it just crashed, I didn't believe them, untill I got over there and saw the back train completely disconnected from the rest of the train and derailed. I was so shocked, it just seemed unreal. My friends got footage of it (not actually crashing but showing the injured people get out) and I took a few photos (not of the people, thought that was kind of rude.) They were on the train right before that happened in the same seats and everything, pretty scary. Even scarier, my best friend since I was 4 was actually not on the part of the train that got disconnected, but the part right in front of that, and he suffered minor injuries as well. He told me there was just the smell of metal burning, super loud screeching, crying, terror screaming, and it was just terrible sounding. Luckily no one got killed, but he did say he stopped breathing for about a minute because it slammed into the breaks causing his stomach just to get pushed up into the lapbar, and the people on the train were yelling at the ride ops saying he couldn't breathe and no one came to help him, but he did eventually catch his breath. This part sounding kind of fishy, but he also said once he caught his breath he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out by sliding through the lapbar (which really wouldn't be hard at all to do if your smaller, the lapbar doesn't come down all the way like Magnum, totally different) and he let everyone else out because none of the ride ops would come to see them. But it easily could have happened, just shocking that he'd do that. Anyways, he got rushed to the hospital even though he knew nothing was really wrong, and nothing was as results turned out.

But jeeze, this is just terrible, and absolutley terrifying nonetheless. I've never seen this ride even have a breakdown like where it was closed for just a few days, and it's at my homepark, where it just seems nothing could go wrong. Never would have thought this would happen, especially with a friend of mine on it.

But, my theory of the detaching is when the back train hit the brake run, the bottoms of the train wern't lined up with the brakes like normal causing it to derail and get tilted (yes it didn't derail all the way thankfully).

Also, there was only one serious injury, in the back car there was a guy that's head hit a powerbox on the brakerun, causing a pretty gory scenes (not horror movie gory), but he didn't get killed and got sent home that night from the hospital.

Just so scary that something like this really did happen, and that I was riding it that day..

Hopefully, this will reopen sooner than Steel Dragon, without Wild Thing Valleyfair just wouldn't seem the same.

I'll try to get the videos to you guys soon, please be patient however.

If you have any questions, please ask.

coastergeek1 said:

and the people on the train were yelling at the ride ops saying he couldn't breathe and no one came to help him

There is no need to be yelling at ride ops when something like this happens. The ride ops were as shocked this has happen. I am glad he caught his breathe. Only yelling makes it worse so if this ever happens agian (which i pray to God that it does not), everybody should relaxed. If I was on the train and that happen I would say no more roller coasters for me.

Yeah, I can't really blame them though, when something like this happens I'd probably be pretty paniced (sp?), and the initial reaction for me would be "We really need help over here!!"

But I don't know, no one really got hurt too bad except for one person, and he still got home that night, so I'd still be riding.
*** Edited 5/23/2006 8:54:44 PM UTC by coastergeek1***

If I was on the train and that happen I would say no more roller coasters for me.

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say once something like that happens to you, you're pretty much guaranteed to not have something like that happen to you again.

It's kinda like lightning...

I agree with coastergeek, it is a bit of a natural reaction.

Topthrill420 said:

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say once something like that happens to you, you're pretty much guaranteed to not have something like that happen to you again.

It's kinda like lightning...

Tell that to Roy Sullivan.

I don't quite understand why everyone wouldn't ride anymore. If what Dave is saying is correct, we've had a major mechanical failure of the axel of the coaster train. And in all of this, we had 18 minor injuries, with no overnight stays in the hospital. Sounds like the safety systems worked properly.

I think we all need to remember that these are machines, and they can and will break; but also remember that very smart people do everything possible to prevent major or fatal injuries in the case of a failure. All in all, I'd say it's a testament to the design of the safety equipment, even if it's a design problem on the train that caused the issue.

Mortimer said:
I don't quite understand why everyone wouldn't ride anymore. If what Dave is saying is correct, we've had a major mechanical failure of the axel of the coaster train. And in all of this, we had 18 minor injuries, with no overnight stays in the hospital. Sounds like the safety systems worked properly.

I think we all need to remember that these are machines, and they can and will break; but also remember that very smart people do everything possible to prevent major or fatal injuries in the case of a failure. All in all, I'd say it's a testament to the design of the safety equipment, even if it's a design problem on the train that caused the issue.

Well said!

I think it would take a death to keep me off a ride after an accident.

I will continue to ride Morgan hypers as long as they are around and no one actually dies on one.

As long as its not me that dies, I'll keep riding them.

Scarey sounding accident/mechanical failure. You rarely think about all that could go wrong before getting on a ride mechanically. An axle is a pretty major part to fail.I'm glad to see that the design limited injuries to minor ones. It wouldn't stop me from riding a coaster again though. I know there's a risk getting on and what a way to go!

Damn, there goes my plan of sending you on them ahead of me.

If it's front car ,you can even give me a shove*s*

Update:
Having seen more photos, it appears that the incident actually involved the #10 axle (back of the penultimate car) and that its failure ended up tearing the last car apart. There are photos and video out there which indicate that when all was said and done, axles #10, #11 and #12 were all disconnected from the train. With no axles under it, Car #6 was not tipping on its roll pivot, it was sitting on top of a couple of loose axles.

I still don't know what went wrong, but it was a serious mechanical failure. The fact that Mamba apparently operated the next day suggests to me that the park has a pretty good idea of exactly what went wrong.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Okay, so when I go to Dorney on the 9th, should I avoid Steel Force? Or just ride in the front? ;)

Seriously, will they be watching SF more closely, or will they shut it down for inspections or something? I'm not a total chicken, but I have the worst luck on the planet, and Cedar Fair's parks were the one place I didn't think I had to worry...

djDaemon said:

Topthrill420 said:

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say once something like that happens to you, you're pretty much guaranteed to not have something like that happen to you again.

It's kinda like lightning...

Tell that to Roy Sullivan.

Wow! Talk about bad luck. Such irony in his death.

I compare the Wild Thing incident (and Cedar Fair's apparent response to it) to the Superman:ROS brake failure at SFNE. When the brakes failed at SFNE, the other Six Flags Intamin coasters were not shut down. When they did that, it was obvious that something big and obvious had failed such as a brake pressure hose. Because it was not an unknown failure, it was easy to inspect the other rides for the same obvious problem, and get them running again (then upgrade the brake hoses). The fact that Mamba was running again so soon after the Wild Thing problem suggests to me that this problem was a big obvious thing as well, something they could inspect and clear on Mamba pretty quickly. I imagine Steel Eel and that the two mine trains in California (especially the one at Bonfante, for not-so-obvious reasons) also got a close look before opening back up.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

(edit: fixed a factual error about the SFNE incident) *** Edited 5/24/2006 1:38:40 AM UTC by RideMan***

I heard that statistically, it is safer to ride a roller coaster, than to eat a hot dog.