Step right up to this spine-chilling episode of the Pushing Up Lilies Podcast, where I dare to explore the hidden dangers lurking within the bright lights and laughter of fairs and amusement parks. Discover the untold stories behind some of the most devastating accidents, and the somber reality behind these entertainment havens, reminding ourselves that even in moments of joy, we must remain vigilant to ensure that thrills never turn tragic.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:30 Hey guys, I'm coming to y'all this week from the North Dakota State Fair.
0:35 We've been here and seen a couple of concerts.
0:39 I just thought it would be appropriate to maybe discuss fair deaths.
0:44 The reason is because we were standing in line for the jelly roll concert and we were under the Kamikaze ride, which is kind of like a slingshot with a ball in the middle.
0:54 And we were talking about how devastating it would be if one of the cables broke.
1:01 And they were telling me that about 10 years ago that that had happened.
1:06 I was just thinking, you know, I wonder how often the rods are actually inspected, who actually puts them together and what is their skill set?
1:18 It kind of makes you wonder because those rides sometimes travel all across the country, go to different fairs, they're on the highway.
1:29 Do the people actually cut corners or take shortcuts when they're putting the rides together, thinking that what they're doing won't affect anybody.
1:40 And then in the end they actually do when the winds get high, things can happen.
1:46 Sometimes rules are broken by height restrictions and that kind of thing.
1:53 But inspections, you know, are intended to help cut down on the number of accidents and injuries, but that's really not always the case.
2:03 They're supposed to be checked when they're being set up to make sure that they meet the manufacturer's specifications.
2:10 But you just have to wonder if there's cracks or brakes and again, are they assembled properly and installed properly?
2:22 And then sometimes even when they are spot inspections of the ride and investigations, they really can't identify the issues that lead to malfunctions.
2:37 Many times people don't follow the rules.
2:40 Like I said, as far as height restrictions, someone's too small, the seatbelt doesn't go on them correctly or fit them correctly.
2:48 So they're not held in the place like they should be.
2:51 I've even seen an incident where someone was on a ride and choked on their own vomit, which that would be me y'all.
3:00 That would be me because I was actually saying that on the kamikaze when we were standing under it, I was like, ok, if I was on that ride, I would be throwing up on everyone down below.
3:13 I can remember though years ago we had a small fair in Denton where my kids grew up and my daughter begged, begged for me to go on the tilt a whirl.
3:24 And although I know that I get sick, even just riding in a car, I kind of told her it wasn't a good idea and she kind of guilted me into it by telling me, you know, look at all the other moms, look at all the other dads, everyone's riding this with their kids except for you.
3:43 And so I got on it and as sure as the world as soon as I got off, I lost my lunch.
3:52 So it is not a good idea for me to get on a ride.
3:56 I tried to go to Six Flags.
3:58 I tried to ride the Judge Roy Scream which doesn't really do the twists and turns and upside-down crazy stuff that a lot of the roller coasters do.
4:08 But I just cannot, I mean, I don't know if it's just the speed or the quick change in direction, but I couldn't do it when I was younger, but I still can't do it at my age now.
4:23 I mean, getting on a swing at a playground would make me sick.
4:27 I don't know how people do it.
4:29 I was just never a ride person, but I was looking into it and there are really about 30,000 amusement park related injuries every year and not only injuries, but deaths. Deaths occur more commonly than we think.
4:47 So the chances of being injured are actually, they say only one in 16 million and they compare that to one in 700,000 chance of being struck by lightning.
5:01 So I found a couple of incidences where there were actually deaths at amusement parks.
5:08 I do remember back in 06.
5:11 Of course, my kids were quite a bit younger, but I took them to Disney World.
5:17 My oldest daughter loves to ride roller coasters.
5:20 I mean, she likes all of the rides, but she loves roller coasters.
5:26 And so while we were at Disney, we heard that a couple of days prior that a young boy had died on the rock and roller coaster at MGM Studios at Walt Disney World.
5:40 And we heard that he was young, we were told he was 10 or 12 so we weren't really sure exactly.
5:47 Turns out that he was a 12-year-old from Kentucky.
5:52 He appeared in good health and was not sick before he got on the ride, but he actually died while he was on the ride.
6:02 He was unresponsive when the ride was over and taken to the hospital and was pronounced when they did an autopsy on him.
6:12 They found that he had a congenital heart defect, which is kind of scary, you know, and this happens to a lot of kids when they're playing football and they pass out either from the heat or just from an increased heart rate.
6:25 Now, the dad who was sitting next to him actually discovered that he was unresponsive and did CPR on him until the medics got there, which didn't take long because they're close by on the grounds.
6:37 So he just had this heart defect super sad though, right?
6:42 That the family is at Walt Disney World living their best life.
6:46 And then this poor little boy dies of a heart related issue that he didn't even know he had.
6:53 I just remember thinking I didn't want her to ride it.
6:56 I mean, she was going to ride it by herself.
6:58 She was going to get on with strangers.
7:00 And I wasn't crazy about the idea.
7:03 I mean, it was fine, it turned out ok.
7:05 But I did do some research and did find some other fear related deaths.
7:10 And again, I do trust that they do their inspections.
7:15 I would think that the people that run the fairs would make sure that the companies that they use for entertainment would regularly inspect and have a decent safety policy in place before they would allow them to set up.
7:33 But in June of just this year, there was a death at Sweden's oldest amusement park, and it's called Growl.
7:44 And there was a train on the Jet Line roller coaster, and it derailed, and it went partially off the tracks and there were 14 people on it.
7:55So I can just imagine the terror.
7:58 I mean, I know how I feel when I'm on the Ferris wheel and it stops.
8:03 It's like, am I stuck here?
8:05 How am I going to get down?
8:07 I mean, I don't know, just the worst-case scenario always pops into my head, but some people were thrown off and one man actually hung onto the rail before he was rescued.
8:19 So I don't know how high up he was, but that sounds horrifying.
8:25 One person did die, and several were taken to a local hospital, but they're not really sure what caused the malfunction and it's actually still under investigation because it hasn't been that long ago.
8:38 This just happened in June of this year.
8:41 It's scary.
8:42 It's scary to think that something like that can happen so quickly.
8:46 And then again, I mean, you can die in a car accident so you don't not get in your car and you don't want to not go anywhere just because of the possibility of this happening.
8:57 But you definitely want to make sure that you at least go by the rules, you know, make sure that your kids are tall enough to get on a ride so that the safety equipment can work the way it's supposed to so that the seatbelt fits around them and just do your part in making sure that you're safe.
9:17 Now, there's another park in Orlando called ICON and they have the world's tallest freestanding drop tower.
9:27 So it's about 430 ft tall.
9:30 There was an incident back in March of 22 when a 14-year-old boy fell to his death after falling out of his seat because the lock malfunctioned.
9:42 So he was from Missouri.
9:43 His name was Tyree Sampson.
9:45 He died on March 24th of 2022 after he fell out of his seat while he was visiting the park with his football team for spring break.
9:54 The ride was dismantled after it happened again, talking about following the rules.
10:01 He weighed 383 pounds.
10:04 He was 14 years old.
10:06 The ride limit was 285 pounds. When he fell, he suffered internal injuries and broken bones.
10:13 The family actually reached a wrongful death lawsuit with the park in the ride operator.
10:20 Now, probably the reason for that is even though he weighed more than he should have before he was allowed on the ride is that they allowed him to.
10:29 He was 14.
10:30 He could have easily been told, hey, you can't get on this ride.
10:33 You weigh too much, but he wasn't told that anyway, the family did reach a settlement.
10:41 There was another free fall incident that happened, and this was back in the summer of 2010, a 12-year-old Florida girl fell more than 100 ft off of a freefall ride.
10:51 Now, she was at the extreme World Park in Wisconsin.
10:57 This is such a sad story, y'all.
10:59 She had seen the ride on the travel channel and wanted to do it.
11:04 They raise you to the top of a platform and then you're unhooked and you free fall about 52 miles an hour.
11:11 Now there's a safety net under you.
11:14 But when she was released, the net was still on the ground, and it did not break her fall.
11:20 So it was not raised like it was supposed to be, and they weren't paying attention, didn't make sure that the net was in place before they dropped her and she fell to the ground.
11:33 So this was obviously caused by human error.
11:36 Again.
11:37 On the ride, you were supposed to be 14 and she was only 12.
11:43 But her parents had signed a parental consent form giving her permission to ride the ride even though she was underage.
11:51 Now, her age in this incident obviously had nothing to do with what happened and it was human error.
12:01 She broke her back and pelvis and then suffered brain damage and she was hospitalized for two months before she was returned home.
12:11 I personally can't believe that she even survived the fall because you can only imagine falling more than 100 ft at 52 miles an hour and hitting concrete.
12:23 So the operator was charged with negligence.
12:26 The family actually settled with the park.
12:29 So apparently what happened is there were supposed to be airbags under the safety net and when they lowered her through the trap door to drop her, they were actually refilling the airbags that lift the safety net into place.
12:45 The operator actually did not get the all clear from the ground.
12:49 When he pulled her rip cord, she did land on her back and she did have brain swelling and like I said, multiple severe spinal and pelvic fractures and then intestinal lacerations.
13:04 Super scary, super scary.
13:06 Now there was another one and this was the Six Flags injury, and this happened July 8th of 2011, James Hackamore who was 29 years old actually fell from the right of steel and this happened at six flags in New York.
13:23 The crazy thing is he was a US army veteran and a double amputee.
13:29 He lost both legs to an injury during the war in Iraq.
13:33 So he was seated in the front row and was launched out of the car because he did not have legs to secure under the lap belt again.
13:44 Super sad.
13:46 What's the point in putting the lap belt on if you know that it's not secure and it's not actually going to hold you in and serve its purpose.
13:54 But his death again was ruled operator error.
13:56 He should never have been allowed on the ride.
13:59 The ride was shut down for about two weeks after the incident, but he was ejected from, I mean, it was 208 ft tall, one of the tallest coasters east of the Mississippi River and it actually exceeds about 70 miles an hour.
14:15 So if you could imagine being ejected at that speed from that height.
14:23 Yeah, there's just no way.
14:25 And I'm guess, I mean, I don't know, normally they have the bars that go over you that you can actually hold on to if something happens.
14:34 Kind of like, as I guess, a backup plan, right, if your seatbelt comes off or whatever, I also feel like he maybe should have known that the seatbelt was not gonna hold him in the seat securely because he did not have legs.
14:49 I mean, part of it again.
14:50 Yeah, I can see where it's operator error.
14:53 But also you have to kind of use your common sense and realize the magnitude of what this rod does while you're on it.
15:03 The speeds that it reaches the heights that it reaches.
15:07 There was another incident back in 84 and this happened in June as a 48-year-old woman and she was actually tossed from a bobsled car.
15:16 Now, this happened at the Matterhorn in Disneyland in California.
15:22 The sad part is she was decapitated after she was struck by another bobsled after she was tossed out of hers.
15:30 So whether she was ok initially, prior to getting struck by the other bobsled, who knows?
15:39 But those things can't really be stopped.
15:42 So her seat belt had not been buckled and it's unknown if it malfunctioned or if she had unbuckled it for some reason.
15:52 There's no way to know again.
15:55 I know that the ships that like rock, they have one at Six Flags.
15:59 I have ridden it before.
16:01 Now, I could not get on that because I would be so sick.
16:05 But there was a ride called the Sailing Ship Columbia in Anaheim, California.
16:11 Back in 98, a large metal cleat actually ripped free from the side of the ride, and it hit two guests and a cast member.
16:22 These are people not even on the ride.
16:25 So again, I do kind of have a little bit of a fear just walking past them because you never know what can happen.
16:33 Unsuspecting.
16:34 You know, you walk past a ride and a cable snaps. Sad that they were just walking.
16:42 They weren't even on the ride.
16:43 They didn't even choose to be on it and take that risk and still this happened.
16:49 But the tie line that was holding the cleat in place was replaced with a rope to save money.
16:56 The park it was found, had not really trained the operator properly, obviously.
17:02 But so the family received a $25 million settlement from that again, taking a shortcut using a rope instead of a tie on.
17:13 It happens.
17:13 I mean, it happens again, like I said, probably more than we realize in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there was a ride called The Extreme and Lindsay Zino was on that coaster.
17:30 She actually fell 30 ft from it back in July of 2010 dying from her injuries.
17:39 She was seen trying to actually pull the safety restraint down over herself.
17:45 They don't know if it malfunctioned or if it just wasn't locked properly when she initially got on the ride, but the ride was permanently closed after that.
17:55 But people did see her trying to pull it down over her to try to secure herself in.
18:00 It sounds like it just wouldn't lock my guess would be that people around her or even next to her, saw her struggling with it and tried to help.
18:10 I don't know.
18:11 It's just super scary.
18:12 Even in 2018 July 15th.
18:16 Actually in Pakistan there is a ride that swings passengers back and forth from a pendulum and it broke.
18:25 Now I saw one of these at the North Dakota State Fair.
18:29 I don't know.
18:30 I mean, I guess I just always think the worst and part of it has to do with my job as a death investigator.
18:36 I see things that have happened that I never thought could happen or would happen.
18:42 And then it just makes me kind of not really have a premonition but realize, I guess that there are possibilities that other people may not realize in New York.
18:54 And I know that I've already mentioned several that happened in New York.
18:58 But there was a ride called The Top Scan and this one was in East Farmingdale, a 45-year-old got in this ride which takes passengers on a spinning ride in six different free rotating gondolas. So her safety harness broke mid operation and she was flung from the ride and landed on a parked car in a nearby parking lot.
19:23 Of course, when this happens, they always close the rides, and they inspect them.
19:28 Sometimes the parks are kind of fearful of reopening them because obviously they don't want another death.
19:34 They already know they're going to deal with a lawsuit.
19:37 But this ride in particular never reopened Adventure Land in Altoona, Indiana, the raging rivers can be dangerous.
19:48 And I know that they've had several injuries on these raft rides.
19:53 And y'all, this was in 2021.
19:55 And I remember hearing about this, a raft on the rapids and now these are bigger, usually have like tires around them to keep them afloat, but it overturned.
20:06 So they're heavy and six passengers were on board, four were severely injured, an 11-year-old boy died from his injuries and the ride had just passed inspection the previous day.
20:19 It was closed temporarily.
20:21 I have heard of these things overturning and they're heavy.
20:25 And so you can just imagine on these rapids when the water's moving fast like that, how easy it would be to drown, especially if you had a big vessel like that on top of you or a big raft on top of you.
20:40 The roller coaster thing always scares me though because they are so high.
20:44 And this one in Mexico City in 2019, it was a roller coaster, and the last train broke loose from the track and crashed 30 ft below.
20:56 10 passengers were on board, two hit their heads on, still support and fell, dying from head injuries.
21:04 And then two women were hospitalized, and six others were treated at the scene.
21:09 After that, the park closed, and it was found that none of the park rides had really ever undergone routine maintenance again.
21:17 This was in Mexico.
21:19 So you just have to wonder in other countries, you know what the standards are?
21:24 We don't even know what the standards are in the US sometimes.
21:27 So that would be a little scary.
21:30 And I've even sat and watched rides before and I've seen them shake and usually, I don't know, I mean, sometimes they just look like they could literally fall.
21:40 There was another incident in Vernon Township, New Jersey and this was a kayaking ride and it opened in 78.
21:48 But, you know, since they had opened, they had many mishaps from drownings to head injuries.
21:55 So obviously, this is not going to be the safest ride to get on.
21:59 But in 1982 a 27-year-old man got on the kayak and of course, this simulates river rafting and his kayak tipped over, he got out to turn it back over so he could get back in, but he stepped on a metal grate and apparently it was really close to live wires and he was electrocuted.
22:22 So this is like a total fluke just where he stepped actually on these wires.
22:28 Cause this.
22:29 Now the park said that he couldn't have been electrocuted because he didn't have burns.
22:35 But we know on autopsies that rarely do underwater electrocutions cause burns.
22:42 So the ride was closed, and it was never reopened.
22:47 There are so many just like terrifying incidents that have occurred at these fairs and these little, you know, makeshift carnivals.
22:57 I kind of deviate every once in a while, from my regular murder talks to things like this just mainly to educate.
23:06 And then also because these are desks that we deal with at the medical examiner's office.
23:11 These are desks that coroners and medical examiners and justice of the pieces also run across.
23:18 So this is also our reality.
23:21 This is something that we walk into and see not every day, but in the summer, you know, we were talking about how we see drownings and we see all these other things and we do see a lot of homicides.
23:35 I mean, of course I could talk about those all day long, but I also think that it's interesting for y'all to know the different kind of deaths that we deal with things that you really wouldn't even think about somebody to on their own vomit on a ride or somebody being electrocuted on a ride or, you know, thrown from a ride, which is probably all of our biggest fear.
23:56 I mean, it happens, it happens even on the smallest rides, things can go wrong, even on ones that you don't think are going fast enough for somebody to actually get injured.
24:06 There was a Roger rabbit cartoon spin in California that, you know, you wouldn't think went fast enough to hurt anybody.
24:16 But a four-year-old fell from it and was trapped under a car and had a lot of internal injuries and brain damage and was in a coma for weeks and then ended up dying nine years later or eight years later.
24:29 He died in 09.
24:30 And this happened in 2000 again in Anaheim, California.
24:35 I actually found so many that I would like to continue talking about them next week because there are a lot, they're just super interesting because like I said, the amusement parks are everywhere right now.
24:48 Fairs and carnivals because the weather's nice.
24:50 I mean, it's been beautiful here.
24:52 It's been in the eighties the whole time.
24:53 We've been here now in Texas.
24:55 I probably would not be at a fair because it's like 100 and 10 literally, but it's gorgeous here.
25:01 We got to see jelly roll the other night, which was an amazing concert.
25:06 It sold out.
25:07 I think there were 18,000 people there in the concert arena watching him.
25:11 And he actually went, I think a little bit longer than he had planned.
25:17 But he played some songs that he said the crowd just kind of prompted him to go outside of his regular track.
25:24 So we loved that.
25:26 It was really good.
25:27 So anyway, we're going to talk more about amusement park and fair ride injuries and death next week just because like I said, there were so many and they're really interesting to hear the different things that can happen.
25:40 I just think that y'all would like to hear those, especially this time of year.
25:44 So we will talk about that again next week, and I hope y'all have a great week.
25:48 We'll see you then.
25:50 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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26:04 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.