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American Morning
31 Hurt in Amusement Park Ride Collapse
Aired July 31, 2001 - 09:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to begin this morning with some amusement park thrill seekers who got a bit more than they bargained for. Malfunctioning rides at two different amusement parks left several people frightened or even worse. In Muskegon, Michigan, 31 people were hurt when a ride spun off its axle and crashed to the ground. Three people are hospitalized right now in fair condition. The others were treated and released.
The Chaos is a rotating disk that tilts in the air and while riders are spinning around in individual cars -- you see the pictures there above those cars -- and some of the riders were trapped for hours waiting for rescuers to get to them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BETHANY CARROLL, STRANDED RIDER: We were on the ride and he was getting ready to go and it crashed. And it was like smashed and everything. You could hear it. And a lot of people got hurt.
QUESTION: What was going through your mind?
CARROLL: That we were going to fall like get bad injured, badly injured.
QUESTION: But you didn't, but you were up there a long time. How about...
CARROLL: Three hours.
QUESTION: Yes. What was going through your mind for that three hours?
CARROLL: That we were going to fall and get hurt.
QUESTION: What were the firefighters telling you?
CARROLL: That it's going to be OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Now, in Dallas it was a different story there. Two men were hurt in a mishap on a bungee ride. A cord on the ride snapped and then the cage that the men were in went hurtling into a support tower. A backup safety line is what kept them from plunging all the way to the ground. Both men were treated at a hospital and then released. The ride is now closed until investigators figure out just what went wrong there.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Accidents at amusement parks get a lot of attention, but are those just isolated incidents? How safe are most parks? Amusement park safety consultant William Avery is joining us by phone from Orlando to talk a little bit more about that. Mr. Avery, thanks for talking with us this morning. Who's watching these? Who's doing some of the maintenance and overseeing some of these rides?
WILLIAM AVERY, PRESIDENT, AVERY SAFETY CONSULTING: Well, most of the maintenance, of course, is done internally by the parks that operate the rides themselves. Many of the states in the United States have ride safety inspection programs, but there is no federal mandates on the books except for traveling carnival rides, which has to do with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
KELLEY: You know, if you walk up to a ride, what can somebody do? I mean if I want to get on or if I want to place my children on a ride, what should I look for? Is there something that might stand out that should say to somebody don't get on this ride?
AVERY: Well, there's several things. Of course, there's no guarantees. But if you see a ride that's rusted and it doesn't look like it's been well maintained or has cosmetic problems, even those kinds of things may be a clue to this, that maintenance is not being performed correctly on that ride. Of course, if you see the employees that are goofing off, are not paying attention at the operator's panel, you may not want to ride that ride. And of course if there's any kind of rules or instructions as guests you really want to make sure you pay attention to those and follow them.
KELLEY: Yes, most of those do you directions that are posted. But you talk about the attendants who might be goofing off. If you get an attendant you think is good and who's serious, can you ask them when's the last time, you know, this was greased or the bolts were tightened?
AVERY: Well, those are different departments. The operator would be different than maintenance in most cases. But, yes, you know, you can ask him anything you would like. Whether they can answer that for you or not, I couldn't tell you that.
KELLEY: Yes. Well, what would you say to somebody who might be wanting to go still in the summertime? Here it is, a lot of folks want to go to the parks. Should you stick with the well known theme parks? Is that safer?
AVERY: Well, you know, I don't think there's any evidence to support that either way based on what we've seen historically happen. I think, you know, what you, of course what you have to understand is they're reasonably safe for the numbers of exposures and the numbers of people that occasion these parks and take trips to the amusement parks. I mean you're talking about literally hundreds of millions of people with very few incidents.
KELLEY: Well, we did look up some stats from the Consumer Products Safety Commission and they talked about an estimated 10,400 hospital emergency room treated injuries that occurred in 1999 and then they also went on to say that from '93 through '99 there was a marginally significant upward trend in fixed site and total amusement ride related injuries, but that there actually was a sharp increase in fixed site injuries beginning in 1997.
Do you have any clue as to why that is?
AVERY: Well, the only thing that I could offer there, and then of course this is pure speculation, one of the things that's happened in the last three or four years is there's been a huge explosion of major, major roller coasters, large coasters, and, of course, that increases the numbers in the riding population. One thing I've always had a problem about is the way the reporting is done and I'm not sure that's an accurate number, and by that I don't mean if it's high or low. I'm just not sure it's a good number.
KELLEY: Whether everybody pulls in the numbers or not, OK.
AVERY: Yes, the way they do it with emergency rooms at selected sites throughout the country, to me, just doesn't validate what's really going on in this industry.
KELLEY: All right. Well, we'll watch and see if we can find out what is going on as we continue to monitor this story. William Avery, who is an amusement park safety consultant, thanks very much.
AVERY: You're welcome. Thank you.
KELLEY: Leon.
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