Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
This ride easily holds in people lots bigger, and is rated for unconscious riders (i.e., the rider isn't expected to be able to provide part of the effort in keeping himself in) like all such coasters. However, some of the g-forces exerted are enough to throw an actively-holding rider out if the harness fails.
The harness failed on this ride. It's a full-body descending U harness, and it released.
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Uh, Bilmore? Do you know something that no one else knows?
Demand for answers after fatal fall
A day after a man died in a fall from a speeding roller coaster in Agawam, the victim's mother demanded answers and US Representative Edward J. Markey blasted congressional Republicans and the amusement park industry for failing to enact universal safety standards for thrill rides.
Markey, a Malden Democrat, pledged yesterday to fight harder to get a hearing on a bill to ensure the safety of amusement park rides that has been stalled on Capitol Hill for five years.
"My hope is the Republican Party will finally realize there will be more deaths and injuries unless they create a federal standard," Markey said yesterday in a telephone interview. "We have federal standards for automobiles, for baby carriages, for safety caps on medicine, but not on rides that go 60-to-80 miles per hour that result in death and injury every summer."
Markey's pledge came a day after Stanley J. Mordarsky, 55, who had cerebral palsy, was hurled to his death about 3 p.m. Saturday at Six Flags New England as the Superman Ride of Steel roller coaster rounded a bend at the end of a run. Today state investigators are expected to release details on the cause of the accident that killed the Bloomfield, Conn., man, said Christine Cole a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Public Safety.
Cole said investigators from her agency examined the ride late Saturday night and made recommendations to authorities at the Agawam park about what was needed to make the ride safe. A full report is due out this week, she said.
"The ride remains closed, and it will remain closed until the park is able to make the remedies that they and the Department of Public Safety discussed [Saturday] night," Cole said yesterday.
She declined to release information about whether mechanical failure, a mistake by an operator, or actions by Mordarsky caused his death.
Germaine Mordarsky, the victim's 82-year-old mother, said yesterday that she does not believe her son's physical problems could have caused the accident.
"They said he spun out of the ride," Mordarsky said. "I couldn't figure out what that would mean. He was so heavy, it couldn't happen. Besides, he went there before, and nothing happened."
Stanley Mordarsky was about 5 feet 2 inches and 230 pounds.
Germaine Mordarsky said her son had cerebral palsy from birth and had asthma and diabetes. The disabilities made walking difficult, but he could get around by using a scooter, she said. "He loved the amusement park," she said. But later, Mordarsky said she wanted answers about why her son was allowed on the ride to begin with.
"I'm worried about something else happening to another person like that. . . . I can't figure out why at 80 miles an hour they let him get on that. That's ridiculous when somebody isn't a firm walker."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/art...er_fatal_fall/
If the harness wasn't locked into place when the guy got on the ride, then it didn't exactly fail, and that is a possibility here.
aV