Amusement Park Rides

The parents of Brandon Zucker--the 4 1/2-year-old boy critically injured on the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin in Disneyland three weeks ago--have agreed to participate in a state investigation to help protect all children on amusement park rides, their attorney said Thursday. "They are the type of people who want to cooperate with the state to help other children out there," said Thomas V. Girardi, a Los Angeles lawyer.

Fearing a repeat of Monday's accident that injured five park visitors, Knott's Berry Farm officials on Tuesday pledged to overhaul the park's longest and most heavily promoted ride, the wooden GhostRider roller coaster. Visual examination cannot detect the weakness that caused a 3-foot shard of wood along the track to work loose under the coaster's pounding and flip up and strike the riders, Knott's General Manager Jack Falfas said.

In the wake of back-to-back accidents at California theme parks, including one in which a board flew free from a Knott's Berry Farm ride Monday and struck five people in the head, a state Senate committee voted to require statewide inspections of all amusement park rides. Though Senate committee members did not discuss Sunday's tragedy--a 12-year-old boy fell to his death at a Bay Area amusement park--Assemblyman Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) said the incident added momentum to support for the bill.

Seven people were treated for minor injuries after a weekend accident at Six Flags Magic Mountain in which a slow-moving roller-coaster train banged into another in the loading station, a spokeswoman for the Valencia park said Tuesday. The Colossus roller-coaster ride was shut down temporarily after the incident at 11 a.m. Sunday while a minor brake adjustment was made and safety tests were conducted, spokeswoman Eileen Harrell said.

The parents of a Fontana woman who died last year after riding a roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia sued the amusement park's corporate owners Wednesday, accusing them of knowingly operating a dangerously violent ride. A wrongful-death lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court contends that the violent nature of the Goliath roller coaster caused the June 2001 death of Pearl Santos, 28.

Dolly Regina Young spilled out of a bobsled on the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland last year and was killed when the next bobsled ran over her. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) says the death of the 48-year-old Fremont woman is one of several amusement park fatalities throughout the United States in recent years that have led him to seek federal regulation of ride safety.

Eight people, including one man who remains hospitalized, were injured late Monday night in a chain-reaction collision on an Orange County Fair roller coaster after the ride's operator apparently failed to activate its brakes. A two-car train on the fair's popular Cyclone ride crashed at high speed into an empty train in the ride's loading bay about 11:30 p.m, sending it into a third train that was being loaded, authorities and victims said.

State regulation of amusement parks took a big step forward Monday as Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa pledged to vote for a bill that calls for outside inspectors to check rides and for parks to report serious injuries publicly. The state Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, rescheduled a vote for next week on a tough park regulation measure by Sen. Don Perata (D-Alameda).

Seizing on a series of amusement park fatalities over the summer, lawmakers proposed Wednesday giving the government expanded authority to regulate all rides. The Consumer Product Safety Commission now regulates rides that travel from site to site with carnivals and seasonal fairs. Regulation of roller coasters and other rides at amusement parks is left to the states, more than a dozen of which lack inspection programs, the commission said in a recent report on amusement park injuries.

The Ejector Seat bungee ride remained closed at the Orange County Fair on Monday while fair organizers waited for a state inspector to arrive from Sacramento. The ride--which costs $30 to $50 for each spin--was closed Sunday night after it stopped in midair, leaving a Santa Ana man dangling 125 feet from the ground for an hour. The ride may be reopened today if it passes an early morning inspection by the California Department of Industrial Relations.