Boy, 4, Dies After Spin on Disney Ride

[meganmonkey]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) - A 4-year-old boy died after a spin on a Walt Disney World spaceship ride so intense that some riders have been taken to the hospital with chest pain.

Daudi Bamuwamye lost consciousness Monday aboard ``Mission: Space,'' which spins riders in a giant centrifuge that subjects them to twice the normal force of gravity. The boy's mother carried him off the ride, and paramedics and a theme park worker tried to revive him, but he died at a hospital.

---snip---

An audio recording and a video warn of the risks. Signs advise pregnant women not to go on the ride. Motion sickness bags are offered to riders. One warning sign posted last year read: ``For safety you should be in good health, and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness or other conditions that can be aggravated by this adventure.''

Since the attraction opened in 2003, seven people have been taken to the hospital for chest pains, fainting or nausea. That is the most hospital visits for a single ride since Florida's major theme parks agreed in 2001 to report any serious incidents to the state. The most recent case was last summer, when a 40-year-old woman was taken to a hospital after fainting.

more...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5074236,00.html


Comment: They reopened the ride after engineers concluded it was working properly....Maybe their standards for 'properly' need to be reevaluated!!!

[boohootwo]

1. I was sick all night after that ride. No place for a 4 yr old.

[truthisfreedom]

2. hmm. 2g's? that's like instantly becoming twice your own weight.

pretty stressful.

[Deere_John]

6. An airliner in a 60 degree bank puts two G's on the passengers.

It wouldn't be comfortable if it lasted a long time but it wouldn't put anyone at risk unless they were really medically fragile.

[YankeyMCC]

3. We were there last year

And rode it with my 8 year old son three times.

I would not bring a 4 year old on there it is pretty intense.

BTW: That was over the course of a week not 3 times in a row.

[Sabriel]

4. I'm not trying to minimize this, but...

Over two years, how many people have actually ridden it? How many people do they crank through it each week? An actuary might say those aren't bad stats....

[99Pancakes]

5. It's one death too many

n/t

[fleabert]

20. Then we should all stay home because cars and busses and smog and

horses and garden hoses and... kill people.

you can die in the shower if you slip and fall. If one death is too many, then we all just need to stand still and not move or touch anything, ever.

Statistics show that you are much more likely to die on the way to an amusement park, than you are on a ride at the park.

[Lorien]

7. Most attractions get about 10,000 visitors a day

(former Disney employee here). We've had deaths on most of our roller coasters, too. :-(

[Catfight]

22. Is that your maincoon cat on the right? How pretty Lorien. nt

[meganmonkey]

8. That reminds me of the Ed Norton character in Fight Club

who uses a formula to determine whether or not it is financially beneficial for the auto company to have a recall for a flaw, based on how many deaths and how much the settlements would cost vs. the cost of recall/repairs.

And he wondered why he had insomnia?

[Branjor]

9. "The G forces twist and distort riders' faces"

That sounds like a bit too much for an amusement park ride.

[Enraged_Ape]

11. That's just unbelievable.

Sounds like only trained fighter pilots and astronauts should go on this ride.

[TommyO]

13. Roller coaster riders encounter higher G's

though for shorter periods of time in most cases. Most roller coasters are designed to subject riders to less than 4G's of downward force, though at least one (Shockwave at Six Flags over Texas) hits 5.6G's enter it's loops.

There are also launched coasters, such as Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point (Sandusky, OH), which can also do the face-stretching thing as it launches you to 120Mph in about four seconds.

There doesn't appear to be anything inherently unsafe about Mission: Space, I suspect there were underlying medical conditions which were the prime factor in the boy's death.

[Internut]

19. 120 mph in 4 seconds requires only 1.37g acceleration n/t

[youspeakmylanguage]

10. What the hell happened to "You Must Be This Tall To Ride!"

Why the hell did they allow a 4 year old to get on a ride like that in the first place?

[strizi64]

14. exactly my thought n/t....

[SaveAmerica]

15. There's a 44" height limit, thinking of the rides my kids went on at

4, he must have been very big for his age. Developmentally I don't believe 4 or 5 year olds are ready to go on this ride. They should have age limits too in case the kids are big for their age (I'm talking only about this ride because of its intensity).

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. The story says the child was at least 44 inches tall

which was the requirement. That sounds a bit taller than average for a 4 year old; I found a government paper that said the average height on kindergarten entry (just turning 5, right? I'm British) is 45 inches for a boy. So the boy probably only just got in the height requirement.

But until the cause of death is known, we won't know if his size is actually relevant.

[gratuitous]

12. And when the lawsuit inevitably follows

Disney will look very innocent, and claim that there was NO WAY they could have known that anyone might suffer such serious consequences, and besides, there was a warning! Audio AND video!

And the State of Florida, which has no problem letting 12 good persons and true decide matters of life and death for an individual citizen in a criminal case, will balk at charging (criminally or monetarily) one of its corporate citizens for its role in killing this four year old.

[DarbyUSMC]

17. Would anyone here put a four year old on that ride??

Even if the child met the height and weight requirements --- after reading the warnings, who would actually take a child on a ride like that? Don't we assume parents use common sense or do we have to police everything so they'll never have to use their heads? People talk about remembering the days when we had no seat belts, or helmets, or knee pads. Every time there is an accident of any kind, people start screaming for "new laws" to protect people. The dumbing down of America. I'm sorry that this happened. I'm sorry people put their children in the trunk of the car because "they wanted to ride in there." I'm sorry a mother puts her son in the basement so the aggressive dogs don't hurt him. I'm sorry people go to sleep drunk while their toddler wanders out of the house into traffic. Even if we legislate that children have to wear space suits before leaving the house, there will still be parents who don't use their heads and sadly, there will still be accidents that the best parents can't foresee.

Should they put an age limit on this particular ride? It seems that would be a good idea.

[ClarkUSA]

23. No way.

News had it that the kid was sickly and had had health problems all his short life and that the mother tended to be "overprotective" - ironic, eh?

[Gothmog]

18. I like this ride but would not take a 4 year on it

This had to be a tall 4 year old to pass the height requirements for this ride. I like the ride but would not take a 4 year old on it. The ride does not have 2 Gs anylonger. It has been tamed down a bit since opening. I heard that it is now 1.4 Gs on take off now.

This is sad and there will be a lawsuit out of it.

[fleabert]

21. if the kid met the height requirement, and it was operating according to

manufacturer's specs, and the ride op followed the rules of operation, then I put the blame on the parent for this one.

I've been in the theme park biz a long time, and most accidents are caused by rider negligence, not the parks. MOST...NOT ALL.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

24. I am SO glad we didn't go on that thing!

Mr GoG wanted to (he's had disc surgery on his neck, and still has a herniated disc and a bruised spinal cord) and I looked at him like he was nuts. Plus, my 6 year old almost started crying when Mr GoG suggested it...he's just not a "wild-ride" kind of kid.

He finally backed down, and it's a good thing, it would seem. Whew!

[Malikshah]

25. I think that there must have been an unknown heart condition

etc with this child. I have no special knowledge of the case, beyond what's been reported--

There have been many who've been "injured"-- but they've been older folks w/ existing conditions, exacerbated by the intensity of the ride. In other words-- they shouldn't have been on the ride in the first place.

BTW-- like others on the thread-- I've done the ride...after a huge lunch (luckily we waited 1/2 hour)-- while waiting we heard the warnings...every 15 seconds or so. By the time you get to capsule you can repeat it verbatim.... Nope. didn't get sick, but boy...if you have a smidgeon of claustrophobia don't even think about it.

It was intense, fascinating, etc. But not for someone with an existing heart/breathing/neck etc. problem.

T

[tinfoilinfor2005]

26. We live in Florida and so go to the Disney pretty often

There is a nice ride park there especially made for children. Some of the rides in this area are even a bit too over the top for the younger ones within this age group. But I have seen parents dragging children to adult rides, sometimes bragging "Hey, my Joey doesn't like the kiddie rides, he wants to go on the big bad ones." And of course most of the ride attendants are themselves kids and don't want to get into an argument with the customers.
I know from years of nursing and parenting and grandparenting that a child reacts to physical stress differently than an adult.
Horrible tragedy. I hope parents will learn from this.

[Bigleaf]

27. Awesome ride and I believe, as many others do,

that once an autopsy is performed we will see that this young boy had an underlying medical condition that contributed to his death. Tragic nonetheless. My 12 year old son and I rode this ride about 25 times 2 months ago. It was our favourite ride out of all the rides at the Disney parks. It is very intense at takeoff.