Cedar Point: Guest Struck and Killed by Raptor

[mkingy]

Sandusky Register wrote:

An East Canton man was struck and killed by a roller coaster train after hopping a fence at Cedar Point Thursday evening to search for a phone he dropped while riding the Raptor.

James A. Young, 45, was pronounced dead at the scene by the Erie County coroner.

Young was at the park with friends, and had just finished riding the Raptor at about 5 p.m., when he decided to jump a fence and head into a restricted area underneath the coaster, according to Sandusky police Assistant Chief Phil Frost.

While Young was trying to retrieve a cell phone he dropped while on the ride, he was struck by a passing train, police said.

Officials continue to investigate the matter, and Frost said it has not yet been determined if Young was struck by the train itself, or by a person riding on the train.

Police declined to disclose specifics about Young's injuries.

Sandusky police detectives and firefighters responded to the scene shortly after 5 p.m. and joined park officials in their investigation and emergency response efforts.

Within about an hour, a Groff Funeral Home vehicle had arrived on Cedar Point's perimeter road, and entered a gate underneath the Blue Streak. An ambulance was seen leaving the area, and emergency vehicles lined the roadside.

The Raptor and Blue Streak were not in operation for over an hour immediately following the accident, though foot and vehicle traffic in and out of the park continued as usual.

No other injuries were reported to officials as of Thursday night. Officials are urging anyone who saw the incident to contact Sandusky police Detective Sgt. Dana Newell at 419-627-5877 to provide eyewitness accounts.

Young's death came during, or soon after a rally in the park's parking lot, during which LeBron James kicked off the first of five planned Lebron James Family Foundation events at the park.

Young is from East Canton, but police do not currently believe he was one of the 5,000 attendees there for James' event.

Police could not recall an instance when any similar fatal incident occurred at Cedar Point.

Both Sandusky police and Cedar Point publicly extended condolences to those involved.

source: Sandusky Register

[Paradox]

This is the world we live in today. Where a cell phone is worth more than a life.

Coasterkidmwm wrote:

Hope the employees involved don't get fired or sent to Windseeker (a fate worse than termination).

What's so bad about Windseeker?

[Mikey]

HotDogSong wrote:

There are two fences in that area, one of which is around 6 feet tall and has warning signs on it. This photo I took is an example of how the fencing works. The tall fence is for low zones. This is near the cobra roll.

Mikey wrote:

This is the time for Cedar Point to stand up and sue the guest for negligent destruction of property, loss of use, and injury to reputation via negligence.

Start making an example out of these people. They are quick to sue us when something goes wrong, as an industry we should reciprocate when a guest goes above and beyond.

I hope that no guests on board the train were harmed and Cedar Point can patch up the paint on the train and put it back into service quickly.

A person died. You can't sue a dead person. And don't you think this person's death sets an example anyway?

Actually, you can sue a dead person. Just not directly. Because they are no longer a person you have to sue their estate which is established upon their death.

This year I had someone jump a 12 foot clearly labeled fence and climb a set of maintenance stairs just as one of my SROs was launching a train. He aborted the launch and in the process scared the hell out of the guests and burned up $10,000 worth of man hours and damage to the ride. He did his job, the ride did her job and sacrificed itself to save an idiot. We had him arrested for criminal negligence and have since sued him in small claims court for the damages. We may never see the money, but after we get a judgement and a year goes by I will 1099 him for debt relief and we will take it as a tax break.

I gave James a week off from work after it happened, he is still not comfortable behind the panel. Twice he has stopped operating and called for a gate check only for nothing to be found configured wrong. I can only imagine the damage to him that would have occurred if he launched a loaded unit at 70MPH into a human body. It certainly would have killed the occupants in the front row and caused a very bloody train to return one way or the other. Before this season is over I think he is heading for a desk job.

tiepilot35 wrote:

I can't imagine being the person that hit them with their foot, if that's what happened. If it's hard enough to kill someone, it would be hard enough to break your foot or leg. Plus knowing you inadvertently killed someone.

I wonder at what point the political machine will outlaw all forms of inverted coasters.

I also wonder where incidents like this backtrack to. Like does it end up being the person's fault? Employee's fault? The park's fault? Even the manufacturer's fault?

When the accident at Six Flags Over Georgia happened a guest on the train struck the guest on the ground with his foot/leg and killed him. The guest riding broke the appendage that struck the guest in the head. Although Six Flags was not directly responsible for the accident, they were liable to the guest riding for his injuries. However the guest on the ground was primarily responsible for the accident and is technically liable for what ever Six Flags and it's insurance had to pay out to the guest who suffered the injury. I am not too familiar with Georgia's laws, but a lot of the times you end up in complex litigation as a result of the way the laws are written for liability.

You can't squeeze blood out of an orange, but you can defiantly come after a person post mortem if they have assets of sufficient value which could be used to settle a claim. Would I waste time to sue a person who has no assets and is by and large a judgement proof debtor? No. Would I take time to sue a millionaire who has three houses and a private yacht who causes a few hundred thousand dollars in damages to me? Absolutely.

This is not the parks fault as the park gave notice as to the danger as to what would happen if you enter a certain area. It's not the operators fault because once the train is beyond the point of no return, he or she can smack on the E-Stop all damn day but it will have no change on the outcome. Just because a guests self preservation instincts cease to function does not present a liability on the park. They had signage, it was on the map, it was in the written rules for use of the property. Hell it was on the back of every ticket stub and season pass.

lol240 wrote:

I don't think that the B&M Invert needs a long bar thing under passenger's seats which may cause a fatal damage like SFOG's case.

^Yeah they should remove that bar so that more people can hang out under the roller coasters.

[Coasterkidmwm]

It's clearly not needed as a critical support component.

[Mikey]

Clearly it's needed to apply the Darwin Award directly to the forehead.

[Paradox]

Sometimes I read GerstlCrazy's posts and I think they're mine because I blatantly lifted his Amy Schumer theme...but the Chris Pratt/Raptor mashup Paradox posted was legit funny. Some have said it's in poor taste but I think we're boned if we can't find the humor in this ridiculous existence.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Paradox made that post, and it is a damn good post.

Eh heh eh heh eh heh, I get it.

Paradox wrote:

[TTD03]

Apparently legit photos have been found. Trying to find them myself.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Why would you want to see that?

I'm on board with not wanting to see something like that....

I'm on board with TTD. I want to see them if they exist.

[Metazoanhaddock]

same here

I'm in, in a twisted sort of way

[Mikey]

Should you locate them, please keep them to yourselves. We are not a gore site.

dang it I have a photo of them looking at the body on a news web site is it fine if I share the link?

[Metazoanhaddock]

PMs are perfectly acceptable though, sooooo, send some love my way?

I want to see the body too.

I don't want to see the body, I just want to see the scene that ensued, people probably scrambling everywhere, etc. There was a zoomed out picture of the actual accident on Twitter, and I'll just say the guy wasn't looking so good. Obviously I'm not going to share it. I'm really curious how long it took them to figure out that they guy got hit, since someone on the ride said that they felt a bump but didn't even know they hit the guy

I wonder where he got hit and how fast the train was...

I don't know how fast the train was going but reports say he was hit in the back of the head (sounds extremely painful for the split second he was alive)