What's the craziest thing to ever happen to you on a ride?

I've been hit by a bird, swallowed a hornet, and cracked a rib.

I'm curious as to if I'm just a bad luck machine.

Post your experiences below.

[Oscar]

Someone's hat landed on my head on ghostrider. I ate a bug on TTD, I ate more bugs on blue streak.

[TheArchitect]

Sounds like you are a bad luck machine, wow. The worst thing for me was queueing front row for Montu, then they announced the last ride (end of the day) so we had to ride 3rd row. So I never got to ride her up front, then had to fly 3000 miles home. Second worst was being stuck on Air @ Alton Towers in the block at the end of the ride because it broke down. So we were just hanging there for like 15 mins, gets pretty uncomfortable and claustrophobic after a while.

[Turbo]

Wellp, I gots a few.

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Back when this ride was a thing



I was on the final brake run and the ride broke down. This was the early 2000's so obviously radio technology was unavailable to the staff there. I was the only one on the train and the guy yells over to me "DON'T WORRY, I'LL BE BACK SOON WITH A REPAIR GUY."

[An hour later]

The guy finally gets back holding some coffee and a doughnut. He looks over at me, realizes I'm still waiting, then proceeds to put his stuff down and run to the main Seattle Center Building where 5 minutes later out comes him and a maintenance guy.

TL;DR I was stranded on a ride for an hour because the ride-op forgot about me.

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Went on Log Jammer at SFMM with a buddy of mine and his brother. For fun, we decided it was a fantastic idea to put heaviest in front and lightest in back. Not only did we nearly capsize our log, there was not a single square centimeter of dry anywhere on any of us. I sincerely miss that log ride, it was the best in that park.

Back to the capsizing thing, because of the way we positioned ourselves first (lightest in front to heaviest in back) our log carried so much speed we almost flew out of the flume after the first big drop.

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When I was 7, my parents took me to Disneyworld. On space mountain, the ride broke down and we were given two options: get out or wait and get a ride with all the lights on. We chose to wait and that was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had on a ride.

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There's probably more that I'm not thinking of atm, I'll let you know if they come to mind.

While riding Sky Hawk at CP the kid sitting next to my friend bit him during the ride. The poor parents where mortified there kid did that. We couldn't stop laughing.

[mkingy]

Turbo wrote:

Back to the capsizing thing, because of the way we positioned ourselves first (lightest in front to heaviest in back) our log carried so much speed we almost flew out of the flume after the first big drop.

Intriguing - you're made to sit in that order - means you get less wet from the drop :<

Nothing crazy springs to my mind for me however!

[Turbo]

Let me go ahead and paint a picture for you mkingy, you're skimming over water so fast you come up to a turn and nearly tip all the way over, so much that the boat got an unbelievable amount of water in it.

not really crazy but very gross, I swallowed puke on steel force while riding in the back once

[gouldy]

I've never really had anything "crazy" happen to me on a ride, but I have a couple of related stories:

Once back in the 90's, my family and I got stuck on Corkscrew for an hour in blazing sun and heat on the MCBR and I got real bad sunburn. We got given free fast passes for all rides for the remaining 4 hours of the day, which was good!

At Heide Park when I did my German Exchange, I got hit in the face by a stone thrown from the queue area, while riding the bobsled. That was painful.

And finally, and definitely by no means leastly, I was riding single riders on Rita 2 years ago and the girl I sat next to had quite large chesticles and her top was not the best choice of clothing for this activity... and her bra made an impromptu appearance. Which was nice.

This one is embarrassing lol went to hershey park with a few friends right around the time after Skyrush opened up. Since we went with some lady friends who weren't the biggest roller coaster junkies, me and my buddy couldn't make our traditional dash towards the biggest ride at park opening. So finally at about 2pm we roll back around to Skyrush. Now the forecast for the day was record high temperatures and stupid high humidity and since im a small skinnier fellow, i get dehydrated a little bit faster then others. After about waiting an hour and a half for the ride i cracked and bought one of those supper sugary lemonades they sell in line to quench my thirst. Chugged the whole thing... BAD IDEA... not even 10 mins later and probably about 3 trains away from finally getting on the ride, I threw the whole thing back up... Still rode it like a champ... totally worth it.

Two things. I was working at LeSourdsville Lake Amusement Park, a.k.a. Americana, on the roller coaster, Space Rocket, a.k.a. Screechin' Eagle. Before my shift ended and I was to go home, I took one last ride on the Space Rocket to see if everything was OK. I hopped into the front seat of the last car. As the train dropped down the lift hill into the first dip and over the second hill, I noticed that my car wasn't keep up with the rest of the train. I looked over the front of my car down at the coupling and saw that there was only one loose bolt holding me on to the rest of the train. I had to ride the rest of the way hoping that my car wouldn't come off the train. When I got back to the station, we reconnected the last car with four new bolts.

Another time while Tom and I were operating the Space Rocket, I was locking the front car and Tom let the train out of the station. As the train was leaving the station, a girl, approximately fourteen year old, grabbed me and started pulling me and wouldn't let go. So I had to hop on the running board of the train just as it was leaving the station. As we left the station, my foot broke the board that was nailed to the handrail post, a board which locked the cars automatically in case the operator forgot to lock the bars. Well, there I was riding the train on the running board, around the 180 degree curved track into the lift hill. Tom saw that I couldn't get off the train so he turned off the motor that pulls the chain. The train rolled up the lift hill about ten feet and then stopped. I hopped off the train onto the walkboard and then asked the girl if she wanted to get off. She said, "YES!" So I unlocked her bar and she hopped out onto the walkboard, ran down and hopped over the handrail onto the ground and ran back into the park. I didn't see her for the rest of the day. Never a dull moment on the Space Rocket. I could go on and on.

I swallowed a really copious amount of spit from a man in front of me on Wild Thing once. I wasn't really complaining if you know what I mean.

Rode El Toro in the rain, back row. The drive tires before the station got wet enough that the train slipped too far forward when they tried to stop it, causing it to E-stop. I was stuck in the back row IN THE RAIN for about 5 minutes while they reset it!

Also, I've ridden Kingda Ka in the rain. I was part of the ACE group for a Discovery Channel shoot in 2007, and it happened to be lightly raining that day. In the front row the rain hurts enough that you have to cover your face with your hands, it's similar but not as bad in the second row, but from the third row on back it's perfectly fine, no worse than any other coaster in the rain.

Another was when I went to Six Flags America, I almost got dispatched on Batwing with my lapbar unchecked and way too far up. If you've been on a Flying Dutchman, you'll know the lapbar is almost too far away to reach once you have the chest restraint "vest" on. I was able to pull it forward with my foot, but just to the first notch. I'm waiting for the attendant to come and check it when they give the all clear and the seats start tilting backwards for dispatch. I yell "hey, stop!" and he comes over and checks it, saying "I swear I checked all the seats!" I still rode, and it was fine, but of course I told everything to Guest Relations before leaving. Didn't remember the attendant's name.

Aside from that, I've gotten briefly stuck on the brakes on Medusa and RMT at Great Adventure, and once on the lift at Nitro. None of those lasted more than a couple minutes, and I've never been evac'd. I saw maybe 3 evacs the year I worked at Great Adventure.

on wild thing i almost got hit by someones hat flying by

Three weeks ago, Front left outer seat on Gatekeeper at Cedar Point, as we were half across the mid-course brakes a flock of sparrows flew out from between the catwalks and the supports and the whole train kicked the crap out of those birds.

I had to be evacuated from RoS at Darien Lake at about 3/4 up the lift hill. We sat there for about a half hour before they decided to pull everyone off the train because the guy that could fix it was on his day off.

[TTD03]

Man, all these stories are crazy.

CKidd wrote:

not really crazy but very gross, I swallowed puke on steel force while riding in the back once

And eww

[Turbo]

I am liking these! Keep them coming! LURKERS: Don't be shy

I created the perfect thread.

[TTD03]

^ Indeed you did!

While riding Green Lantern at SFMM, the seats were so off balance that the seat spun like crazy, I had a great ride! Even though the ride operators now don't let the train leave so off balance anymore. When i got back to the station, our car couldn't be rotated back into position and the ride broke down. I don't know if we broke the ride or not but i was stuck staring at the ceiling for 15 mins and a Maintenance guy had to manually(used his own strength) push us into position, and forward.
If you ever ride Green Lantern at SFMM, try to be off balance, it may be selfish, but the ride is insane! INSANE! When i see the coaster not flipping, makes me sad, when its so off balance, its in a whole other league.

When riding Superman Escape from Krypton at SFMM, I tested the airtime on the coaster with a penny. After your launched at hit the highest point on the ride, I let the penny go in front of me and I just saw it float(like its suppose to) during the drop. Of course its suppose to work, but seeing a penny float as your riding a coaster is amazing. I recommend doing this next time you ride. Maybe not a penny! (i was ridding in the back so no one could get hit in the face when the coaster changed direction) try a bouncy ball, something that wont hurt if something goes wrong but heavy enough, so the air doesn't affect it too much)
^
Best coaster do try this. Plenty of airtime, and the coaster itself blocks much of the air that can change the objects direction.

[Turbo]

Helo9797 wrote:

If you ever ride Green Lantern at SFMM, try to be off balance, it may be selfish, but the ride is insane! INSANE

I can testify to this. A buddy, my sister, and I went on. 500 pounds on one side and 120 on the other. My. God. It never stopped spinning and never slowed either. In the station it took the ride-ops a few minutes to get us to stop spinning and get us upright.

[TTD03]

^^ and ^ That sounds awesome!

[Turbo]

TTD03 wrote:

^^ and ^ That sounds awesome!

Was truthfully one of the most intense experiences I've ever had on a roller coaster.

Given how bad it used to be, this isn't too crazy, but I cracked a rib in the tunnel on the old Rattler at SFFT.