NEWS: Rider Who Died 'Wanted Off' Denver Amusement Park Attraction, Witnesses Say.
JackTheRipper
Witnesses Say.
By The Denver Post.
1,262 words
29 May 2002
KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Denver Post
English
Copyright (C) 2002 KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News
May 29-John Garlick was riding the Rainbow, his favorite attraction at
Six Flags Elitch Gardens.
It was about 4 p.m. Monday, and a large Memorial Day crowd filled the
Denver amusement park.
This time, though, something was different; something was wrong.
Garlick, a developmentally disabled 28-year-old, said he wanted off,
according to witnesses.
He unbuckled the lap belt, an added safety feature found at Elitch's
but not many other parks that have the ride, and slipped between two
bars holding him in. A stranger seated next to him tried to hold him
down to keep him from falling out. The man struggled to hold Garlick
in his seat as the ride swung skyward.
"He was trying to hold on to the rider for dear life," said Elitch's
spokesman Eric Curry.
The ride operator quickly pressed the emergency stop button, but it
was too late.
Garlick fell from the ride, which reaches a height of 87 feet. He was
critically injured and taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where he
died.
It remains a mystery why Garlick pulled free of the restraints and
stood up. Why did he want to get off the ride? Could he have
understood the consequences?
"He was like my son. That's all I'll say," said an emotional Diana
Fannin, Garlick's primary caregiver, who was with him at the park
Monday. Fighting back tears, Fannin declined to comment further.
Garlick lived at Diana's Loving Hearts, a west Denver care home.
Fannin, the home's operator, had been his caregiver for nearly five
years, said Scott Parker, owner of Parker Personal Care, which runs a
network of homes for disabled adults.
She's highly qualified and has years of working with the
developmentally disabled, he said.
Garlick had been living in Parker Personal Care homes since 1995 and
at Fannin's home since 1997. He was mildly disabled, well-liked and
happy, Parker said.
He had a season pass to Elitch's for the last three years and rode the
Rainbow dozens of times before Monday's incident, Parker said.
"John touched the lives of everyone who knew him, as he was a loving,
energetic and outgoing individual with a heart of gold," Parker said.
Denver police say an initial investigation appears to show Garlick's
death was an accident. The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration will help conduct a mechanical review of the ride, Lt.
Jon Priest said.
The ride was closed Tuesday and is expected to reopen today.
"We've had accidents there before, and by and large they've been
totally accidental," Priest said. "The early indications we have are
that there was some effort by him to get in the situation where he
fell."
Garlick's death is the second at the park since 1997, when a drunken
worker fell from a catwalk.
People can be injured on any number of rides if they do not follow
safety rules, including kiddie rides like the tea cups, Curry said.
Park guests are warned to follow safety rules with signs and by
operators before each ride, he said.
But there is only so much the park can do, he said.
"We're not going to handcuff you to the ride," Curry said. "It's up to
the rider or the guardian what rides they can get on and ride safely."
Tarek Saad, an attorney who specializes in legal issues for the
disabled, said it is possible that a disabled person wouldn't
understand the risks associated with an amusement park ride and take
off a seat belt.
"If this person didn't understand the nature of what he can be doing,
then it could be dangerous," Saad said.
He said the guardian would be expected to teach the disabled person
the dangers of getting on an amusement park ride.
Under that circumstance, the amusement park could not be held liable,
but a guardian might, he said.
"You would think that the guardian would know more than anyone," Saad
said. "You can't expect ticket takers to play doctor."
The only restrictions ride operators consider is height, which
determines whether someone will fit in a ride safely, Curry said.
Though Six Flags employees go through 15 to 25 hours of training
depending on the ride, Curry said there is no way ride operators can
screen all passengers for competency.
"You can't just look at someone and say, "You look like you may get
sick, you look like you may not enjoy heights, you look like you may
want to commit suicide,' " he said.
"We'd be sued under (the Americans with Disabilities Act) for that....
I'm sure even a doctor would be hard-pressed to make sure everyone's
OK with it."
Curry later clarified that he didn't know whether Garlick's death was
a suicide or what made him unbuckle his restraint.
Elitch's attendees ride at their own risk, Curry said. "That's why we
have signs posted everywhere."
Ride operators, mostly teenagers, are audited daily by supervisors.
The bosses hide in the bushes with cameras to make sure employees are
doing their jobs correctly.
On Monday, the ride operator "did everything right," Curry said. She
stopped the Rainbow ride in midair when she noticed there was a
problem. Robert Dean, vice president of North America sales for Huss,
the company that manufactures the Rainbow ride, said that since 1982
the Bremen, Germany-based company has built about 2,000 of the
amusement rides. They are used in mobile and stationary parks around
the world, he said.
"The ride has a perfect safety record for 20 years," Dean said. "This
is all very surprising to us."
Elitch Gardens bought the Rainbow in 1986 and has since upgraded it
with seat belts to improve safety, Dean said. Most of the rides around
the world only have lap bars to restrain passengers, he said.
"The park went above and beyond the call of safety," Dean said.
Witnesses reported to police that, in a childlike way, Garlick was
talking about what he was planning to do and purposely removed the
restraints, Dean said.
The family ride is built to make it very difficult for riders to
escape, even if they wanted to, he said.
"We'll try to determine what happened and try to make sure it doesn't
happen again," Dean said.
It's possible Huss will make modifications to the rides, but it is
hard to imagine what changes could be made with equipment with such a
spotless record, he said.
The Rainbow's safety measures are less than those on some newer, more
extreme rides, but they're considered "more than adequate" by industry
standards, said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park
Services Inc., a Cincinnati-based consulting firm.
The ride's overall safety record is good, Speigel said, adding that he
can't recall a similar accident on the Rainbow. More than 85 percent
of all amusement-park rides are rider-caused, he said.
"Even with the restraints, someone could wiggle out from underneath it
if they're trying to provoke an accident," said Speigel, a past
president of the International Association of Amusement Parks and
Attractions.
- By Sean Kelly, Kirk Mitchell and Allison Sherry
www.coasterreview.com
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Walt Breymier
(JackTheRipper) wrote:
>He said the guardian would be expected to teach the disabled person
>the dangers of getting on an amusement park ride.
>
>Under that circumstance, the amusement park could not be held liable,
>but a guardian might, he said.
>
>"You would think that the guardian would know more than anyone," Saad
>said. "You can't expect ticket takers to play doctor."
Yeah!! Not that I think that the guardian should be sued either,
per se, but at least in this particular instance it seems that logic
appears to be prevailing among all interviewed parties thus far.
Walt Breymier
billy
place? Couldn't that cause a seizure easily?
"JackTheRipper" <JackTh...@IloveWoman.com> wrote in message
news:3cfbbb64...@proxy.news.easynews.com...
Cryptic
news:NqVK8.4997$2n4....@nwrddc04.gnilink.net...
> What were mentally retarded people doing riding a thrill ride in the first
> place? Couldn't that cause a seizure easily?
If you are asking an honest question...mental retardation and epillepsy are
not synonomous.
billy
seizures.
"Cryptic" <no...@anon.com> wrote in message
news:3JVK8.103257$cQ3.2912@sccrnsc01...
tribal...@earthlink.net
posted on Mon, 03 Jun 2002 18:49:27 GMT:
> "He was like my son. That's all I'll say," said an emotional Diana
> Fannin, Garlick's primary caregiver, who was with him at the park
> Monday. Fighting back tears, Fannin declined to comment further.
My guess is that he was schizophrenic and probably "received a message from
his master" which said he should not be on the ride.
> Ride operators, mostly teenagers, are audited daily by supervisors.
> The bosses hide in the bushes with cameras to make sure employees are
> doing their jobs correctly.
LOL... that sounds like what Wal-Mart managers do. They hide on aisles and
peek at you through the holes in the pegboard.
> Elitch Gardens bought the Rainbow in 1986 and has since upgraded it
> with seat belts to improve safety, Dean said. Most of the rides around
> the world only have lap bars to restrain passengers, he said.
I kind of like that, too. I hang on to that lap bar like it's my only
connection with the world of the living.
> "We'll try to determine what happened and try to make sure it doesn't
> happen again," Dean said.
>
> It's possible Huss will make modifications to the rides, but it is
> hard to imagine what changes could be made with equipment with such a
> spotless record, he said.
Simple. Make it impossible for the riders to reach any mechanism which
could release the lap bar or other restraints. They could fix it so that
the ONLY way the restraints could be released is at the loading/unloading
station by a mechanism built into the track. If the train gets stuck and
passengers have to be unloaded on the ride somewhere, then a technicial
would be able to get underneath the train and trigger it that way. This
would make it so that once you're on and the train is moving, you have no
choice but to stay put and remain seated until the ride comes to a "complete
and total stop" as they always say.
Damaeus
Lesley Allen
> Well i know they aren't, but epileptics aren't the only ones that have
> seizures.
Well, if you're going to go by seizures as a reason to limit the
mentally disabled, you could easily say that EVERYONE who boards a
thrill ride should have a CAT-scan done beforehand. The
healthiest-minded person in the world can still be prone to seizures.
Mental retardation has nothing to do with seizures.
Vortex 29
>could release the lap bar or other restraints. They could fix it so that
>the ONLY way the restraints could be released is at the loading/unloading
>station by a mechanism built into the track. If the train gets stuck and
>passengers have to be unloaded on the ride somewhere, then a technicial
>would be able to get underneath the train and trigger it that way. This
>would make it so that once you're on and the train is moving, you have no
>choice but to stay put and remain seated until the ride comes to a "complete
>and total stop" as they always say.
I might have missed something but I don't think he fell off a rollercoaster.
Mike
billy
retarded folks are much more prone to seizures for obvious reasons. They
might not be able to reasonably comprehend the exhileration they feel on the
ride. This could lead to all sorts of disasters besides seizures, such as
what happened. I would tend to think that it is generally not a good idea
for mentally disabled people to ride thrill rides at amusement parks.
"Lesley Allen" <saigo...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:9f0daab1.02060...@posting.google.com...
tribal...@earthlink.net
2002 15:35:05 GMT:
My understanding was that he somehow released a safety mechanism and tried
to climb out. He fell 87 feet. But I wasn't aware the the Rainbow wasn't a
rollercoaster until now. I remember that there was a ride at the Louisiana
State Fair where people sit in rows like a choir and it sort of hurls them
in the air and back down in a big circle. Perhaps that's what they were
riding.
Damaeus
Joe Schwartz
> My understanding was that he somehow released a safety mechanism and tried
> to climb out. He fell 87 feet. But I wasn't aware the the Rainbow wasn't a
> rollercoaster until now. I remember that there was a ride at the Louisiana
> State Fair where people sit in rows like a choir and it sort of hurls them
> in the air and back down in a big circle. Perhaps that's what they were
> riding.
Yep, that's a Rainbow.
--
Come visit Joyrides -- www.joyrides.com -- a photo gallery celebrating
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AJ
>place? Couldn't that cause a seizure easily?
Probably not.. when I was at Islands of Adventure, there was a group of 6
mentally disabled adults with 2 guardians on Dueling Dragons (last rows of Fire
Dragon by the way). When they got back into the station, they had the widest
smiles and were laughing at their experience.
-Andres (Adrenaline Junky)
*Upcoming Summer Trips*
-Boomers - June