WildCat

I'm not sure if "injuries" even warrants a major news report anymore. Most of the time you only hear about amusement ride accidents if someone dies or is MAJORLY injured (read: having your feet severed off) anymore, and most of those reports involve Disney because of its status in the theme park industry. Perhaps, even if there were injuries the ride is of such little consequence in terms of the park itself and the injuries were so minor that the media at large felt it wasn't worth making a big hoopla about.

I was walking by the WildCat when this happened. It was definitely NOT a bump. It was loud and caught my attention easily. One kids face was all bloody and then he was carried off on a stretcher about 10-15 minutes after the crash. There were a couple other kids crying and calling their parents on cell phones. One other kid was holding his arm.

The Cedar Point officials would not let anybody too close and they were really firm with us about that because we were talking about it. I would guess only about 100-250 people even knew what had happened.

It was really upsetting to see kids so young hurt on a ride.

CedarPointGeek said:
^ I heard about it from another cedar point fan site

I just want to know where you heard about that?

I still find it next to impossible to believe the news didnt pick up on this. It has nothing to do with CP's actions; there are people who literally listen to scanners all day and watch emergency calls; hence the quick jump on Magnum's accident.

How could this possibly slip through the cracks?

Kevinj said:
I still find it next to impossible to believe the news didnt pick up on this. It has nothing to do with CP's actions; there are people who literally listen to scanners all day and watch emergency calls; hence the quick jump on Magnum's accident.

How could this possibly slip through the cracks?

with all that is happening with the other rides, i dont think it is very important of wildcat to be known of this. i dont think mr kinzel doesnt want anyone to know about wildcat's accident

Sunday, April 20, 1997 - At Bell's Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one person was killed and five others were injured when two roller coaster cars collided on the park's Wildcat roller coaster. The accident happened as a car was nearing the top of the lift hill. The mechanism holding the car onto the track failed, causing the car to roll back down the hill and crash into another car which was approaching the chain lift. The victim, a 14-year-old boy, was thrown from the car during the crash and struck his head on a steel support. Two other boys were also treated at a local hospital. The Wildcat had been in operation at Bell's Amusement Park since 1974. It was inspected just two weeks prior to the accident.
On October 24, 1997, the Oklahoma State Department of Labor released the following reports upon the conclusion of its investigation of the incident:

Taken from rideaccidents.com

Sound familiar?

That's just an oxymoron :lol:

maverick_owns said:

CedarPointGeek said:
^ I heard about it from another cedar point fan site

I just want to know where you heard about that?

The Point Online Forums.

maverick_owns said:
That's just an oxymoron :lol:

Perhaps I'm just not reading you right but an oxymoron is saying something like "Liberal Conservative" or "jumbo shrimp". What Kevinj quoted was not oxymoronic in any way so I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion.

Once again, an accident occurred on Wildcat. How severe it was is up for debate since I wasn't there to witness it myself and stories get blown out of proportion very quickly but an accident there was.

To the few who think they "know" there wasn't an accident, unless you've spoken to someone inside CF management (and even then I'd have doubts since they're obviously trying to keep this hush hush) maybe you shouldn't doubt something that people have actually witnessed. But since you all "know" there wasn't an accident then I guess I wasted my time even bothering typing this.

I hope none of the injuries were too serious, and that all of the (however many) victims will recover soon.

I'm trying to think of any other accident of which Pointbuzzers have definitive evidence despite it never making the news. Did RWB's derailing get on the media at all? (Granted, it doesn't sound like too many people were all that injured in that one.)

Kevinj said:

Sunday, April 20, 1997 - At Bell's Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one person was killed and five others were injured when two roller coaster cars collided on the park's Wildcat roller coaster. The accident happened as a car was nearing the top of the lift hill. The mechanism holding the car onto the track failed, causing the car to roll back down the hill and crash into another car which was approaching the chain lift. The victim, a 14-year-old boy, was thrown from the car during the crash and struck his head on a steel support. Two other boys were also treated at a local hospital. The Wildcat had been in operation at Bell's Amusement Park since 1974. It was inspected just two weeks prior to the accident.
On October 24, 1997, the Oklahoma State Department of Labor released the following reports upon the conclusion of its investigation of the incident:

Taken from rideaccidents.com

Sound familiar?

Wow. I remember reading that actually a few weeks ago there and getting pretty upset about it. I mean could you imagine just going to have a fun day at an amusment park and losing your child? I REALLY hope that it was not that bad at CP's Wild Cat. I'm sure if it was though they would have to make a statement to the media.

You guys have WAY to much faith in your local media. It is very easy to keep things quiet if you have police and local officials on your side. Cedar Point hasn't had a major accident in over 100 years. This is a disaster for them. Can you blame them trying to keep it quiet?

Did anyone else see this coming? I remember back in the 90's rides where almost never down like they are today. What happened?

It all went downhill around the time of the Vertigo fiasco (I'm not implying that that had anything to do with it, just using it as a rough date marker).

Sean_Of_Detroit said:
You guys have WAY to much faith in your local media. It is very easy to keep things quiet if you have police and local officials on your side. Cedar Point hasn't had a major accident in over 100 years. This is a disaster for them. Can you blame them trying to keep it quiet?

Did anyone else see this coming? I remember back in the 90's rides where almost never down like they are today. What happened?

It all went downhill around the time of the Vertigo fiasco (I'm not implying that that had anything to do with it, just using it as a rough date marker).

So are you thinking that something very serious did happen? Or are you just implying that something in general happened?

MIA-Mike said:
I was walking by the WildCat when this happened. It was definitely NOT a bump. It was loud and caught my attention easily. One kids face was all bloody and then he was carried off on a stretcher about 10-15 minutes after the crash. There were a couple other kids crying and calling their parents on cell phones. One other kid was holding his arm.

The Cedar Point officials would not let anybody too close and they were really firm with us about that because we were talking about it. I would guess only about 100-250 people even knew what had happened.

See, that is just it. 100-250 witnesses and no one took a picture or called the news media? Bloody kids calling their parents on cell phones and it still didn't make the news?

The riders on Dragster who got a few cuts from pieces of wire were plastered all over the news, as was the Magnum incident.

The description you give of Wildcat sounds MUCH worse, yet not a peep? By now you would think a law suit would be filed, which would hit the news immediately. Or, someone would have sent a tip to a local TV station or newspaper.

The queue line is right next to the track on Wildcat, giving guests an excellent view of what went on, and there would have been so much commotion, I would think there would be a big crowd of onlookers on the midway before anyone could chase them away. Certainly something would have leaked out, no matter what CP officials did.

Or, you could be completely wrong.

Just sayin'

There's 3 things that make great headlines, Tragedy, Sex, and Tragic Sex. The only thing that would make the press come running to this any quicker is if two kids were getting busy in the back of a wildcat car at the time. I don't doubt that there was an incident, but I can't think of any accident where a ride malfunctioned that DIDN'T make the press, even without injuries.

Exactly. A few years ago there were even helicopters covering a simple walk-down from the lift on the Goliath ride at Six Flags. If the Wildcat incident was anything at all, it would have been on the news.

I don't know if this accident happened or not. I would think if it did it would have made the news by now. May is sweeps month for the TV stations. This is just the kind of story they would grab hold of and run a feature titled "How safe are amusement parks rides". The TV stations have interns that call police departments and hosptals etc. daily asking if there is anything new. Not to mention they monitor the police channels. Plus, in this age of Youtube and cellphone photos you'd think something would have popped up. Maybe something will soon.

Either the accident happened or someone's lying.

-TedFuzz