Mom suing Dorney Park....because her daughter got scared???

Good morning readers!!!!

So this article is basically me venting about the stupidity of park visitors.  Now obviously everyone has done some stupid things in their lives; it's part of making us better and smarter and blah blah blah.  So try to imagine my surprise/head shaking when I read a recent article that came out of Dorney Park.

The short version is that some teenage girl was visiting during Halloween 2017 and she didn't want to be scared so she told the park cast to leave her alone and they didn't.  So when they went to scare her again she fell and got hurt.  Here's one article about the whole situation if you want to read it.

NOW I'm not saying that getting hurt it the stupid part; honestly I'm an accident waiting to happen everyday.  I'm my own portrayal of Murphy's Law in life-you name it then I've probably gotten hurt from it: I seriously twisted my ankle falling UP STAIRS once.  So I would never make fun of someone getting hurt.

Now the reason I am writing this article instead of Carrie is because that crazy ass women LOVES to be scared while I don't.  I will do everything in my power to avoid being scared; I don't go to haunted houses or Halloween events or even watch scary movies.  Being scared is so far from my favorite thing that I will generally fight tooth and nail to avoid being put in the situation.

So to address the article then.  The mother states that Dorney Park did not make it obvious for her daughter to know that there were "No Boo" badges available for her to purchase.  This is just plain being a non observant visitor because on the website I found the No Boo badges explanation immediately and it states that a patron can be a badge at any merchandise location in the park meaning that there would be posted signs in the park.

The article also mentions that the girl asked the workers to leave her alone, but most people know that that is an open invitation for them to really come after you.  So honestly how ridiculous can someone be????!!!  This is like one of those rules that you don't know where you learned it from but you learned it somewhere to never tell anyone to leave you alone in a haunt.

If you haven't figured out by now I find this whole situation BEYOND ridiculous!!! Dorney Park made it quite clear the options to go through the haunt whether you want to be scared or not.  At a certain point the patron has to take some semblance of responsibility for their visit; you don't want to be scared either don't flipping go to A HAUNTED HOUSE type event or look up options that work for your visit.

No matter your own thoughts on the whole thing the bottom line is that at some point you, as an amusement park visitor, have to be responsible for your own safety and well being when visiting. 

Six Flags Magic Mountain- Colossus Fire and Partial Collapse

Image from KNBC

Six Flags Magic Mountain- Colossus On Fire and Partial Collapse

 Six Flags Magic Mountain hasn't had much luck with their roller coasters lately. Less then two months ago, Ninja had an accident where a tree collapsed onto the track- Now Colossus get's even for it's RMC Re-make.

Image from @tslauson7 on Twitter

The iconic coaster which is closed for a make-over by Rocky Mountain Coasters has caught fire and partly collapsed today at Six Flags Magic Mountain today between 1:30 and 2:00 pm. A portion of the lift hill was lost along with what appears to be a decent section of supports.Some reports are saying the full section of the track collapsed, right now we're not entirely sure of the true damage.

 Construction on 'Twisted Colossus' has already begun and fans believe that the addition of the new steel rails is what likely caused the very dry wood to catch fire. Thankfully Six Flags Magic Mountain was closed today and there was no chance of injury to park guests.

 No word exists right now on what started the fire, nor has Six Flags released any kind of statement over the matter. There is also no word on if this will delay the 2015 opening of "Twisted Colossus'.

Ringling Brothers- 9 Injured in Trapeze Collapse

Ringling Brothers Circus- 9 Injured when Trapeze Collapse in Rhode Island.

 While Circus' aren't something we tend to report on often here, this horrible accident was brought to our attention.

 9 arial performers where injured on May 4th when an the feature they where working on collapsed suddenly in the middle of the 11am in Providence, Rhode Island. They circus states the accident happened during the "Hair Hanging" portion of the show.

 Ringling Brothers has released a statement saying that while they all suffered injuries, nothing was life-threatening and all are being treated at a local hospital.

 The circus is also working with investigators to find out what the caused this accident, early reports state the issue happened and are likely linked to be the metal supports which keep the apparatus in the air. Right now, no further news is available.

 Shows for May 4th and May 5th of "Legends" have been cancelled.

 The Video Below shows the accident.
 **Warning: It's hard to watch**


We'd like to wish all of these performers a quick, safe and speedy recovery.

Ride Accidents- A Sad Day in the Amusement Park World

Ride Accidents: Sad News

 Yesterday was a very sad day in the amusement park industry. Not one but two bad accidents occurred at amusement parks on opposite sides of the US within hours of each other.

Cedar Point

 Yesterday during the early evening hours 'Shoot the Rapids' a boat style plunge ride at Cedar Point rolled back during the first lift hill and then capsized onto it's side. The ride was emergency stopped and park employees and guests rushed to aid the riders. Cedar Point isn't stating how the boat rolled over nor even how it rolled back past the safety measures. 

 All seven people on the ride were quickly transported to Cedar Point's First Aid station and treated, one person was taken to the hospital for treatment. The extent of any injuries is unknown but the Lansing State Journal states that all seven people have been released.

 Cedar Point has closed 'Shoot the Rapids' until it can be inspected by Ohio state officials and park investigators. The ride opened in 2010 and has no major reported malfunctions like this in it's past that I've been able to find. 

Six Flags over Texas

 Around 6:30pm a woman on 'New Texas Giant' was somehow ejected from the ride during the second drop when her ride harness malfunctioned.  She landed on a 'platform' which looks suspiciously like one of the rides three tunnels and was killed. It's unknown at this time if the harness was improperly secured at the station or if it malfunctioned during the ride.

 That section of the park as well as the ride at Six Flags over Texas was immediately shut down and people evacuated. Park officials and authorities don't know yet how the ride's restraint system malfunctioned and are working to find an answer.  

 However, I find it odd that only a single harness released and not the harness directly beside it. Nor did this ride emergency stop from sensors most modern coaster trains have included. This makes me believe this could either be a rider error or a ride malfunction. Reports are sketchy, one states that the woman's restraint didn't click 'multiple times' while another states 'it was loose', either way our deepest condolences go out to the family of this victim. 

 Texas Giant opened originally in 1990 as an all wooden coaster, it was closed in 2009 and was re-fitted as a wood/steal hybrid coaster which reopened in 2011. It's name was changed to "New Texas Giant" at that point. It was just featured on "Travel Channel's Insane Coaster Wars: World Domination" episode titled "0-100 in under 2 Seconds" of which it was the 'winning' coaster.

It truly is a sad day in the amusement world, two parks suffered accidents over a thousand miles apart from each other. We will update on these stories as more information is released during the investigations. I also ask you to remember that accidents like these are anomalies and don't happen every day. As sad as they really are, please don't let them sway your judgement on riding amusement attractions or let them reflect upon the parks involved.

Tales from the Firing Line- Test Track: The Legend of Car 19

Happy Friday!
And it's a wonderful Friday for Insanity Lurks Inside, because it's VACATION TIME!
I love vacation, even though our planned trip was cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control it's always nice to have a few days off from the grind! If nothing else it gives time to write out more fun pieces for you wonderful viewers! Cause viewers make me happy and hopefully I give all of you some entertainment too!

Since it's Friday, it's time for yet another "Tales from the Firing Line" and do I ever have a special tale for you today! While it's not a tale of 'When Stupid Attacks.." it is a story your not likely to hear unless you know the right folks who where in the right place, at the right time.

I present to you..

Test Track:

The Legend of Car 19 

Now like most of my stories, this one also requires a basic understanding of the situation. 

When Test Track opened, it was supposed to have exactly 33 ride vehicles. However, it opened with 32 which is still the same number which operated until it went down recently for the massive refurbishment.  The missing car was "Car 19" and let me tell you a story, passed to me from someone who was there to watch it in person.

Before any attraction opens, in any theme park across the country they go threw rather rigorous testing. Not only to work out the kinks in the programing but to ensure the ride is as safe as humans can make it. The more complex the ride and it's systems, the longer and more detailed the testing will be. 

Before Test Track soft opened to the public in December of 1998, they where going threw training and testing when this all began one night.


As we all can guess, the computers controlling Test Track are very complex and have multiple redundant systems controling every action of not only your ride vehicle but the elements of the ride also. This was a seriously complex system, one entire system was devoted to "Car" controls and another massive system controlled the ride elements (Such as the Hot and Cold testing as well as speed and breaking systems which are part of both computer systems).

When the ride went into testing mode before the soft opening, they ran several cars around the track under normal operating parameters, such as the exact show we've all seen. Things worked great!
Then those nice people, the engineers at WDI decided they wanted to know what would happen if there was a major failure or a massive computer problem, when the two controls (One for the cars and one for the Track) stopped communicating. This is when things got interesting.

This is as exact as I can remember it being explained to me.


"So they yanked a few cords to see what would happen just in case. Well they yanked the cords that kept the car in touch with the computer. Imagine a giant sound proof wall stuck in between two things trying to talk. The computer keeps yelling "STOP, STOP!" the car can't hear anything so it assumes everything is normal.. and translates that silence as "Okay, Go anyway!".

So the redundancies in the programing of the car allow it to remember the programed coarse, HOWEVER the braking on the speed test was controlled entire by the computer.
Yeah, so you see the problem and exactly where this is going!

The computer is going "Stop. Stop? STOP!!!" the car is going "Faster. Faster? FASTER!" making it's merry way around the track and as no surprise..  it completely missed the break spot thanks to no computer (telling it when to brake and if it missed the area to stop it) and well.. GIANT FUCKING HOLE was the result.

Car 19 ripped nearly in half with parts falling into the backlot, there was a huge whole in the steel side of the building. For a year or so one could spot the welding marks before they replaced that panel in 2009.  One half that car was dragged in from the emergency tow chains on the bottom. It was bad.. that's why they don't have a car 19 on the track.
 Some years later, another car was painted and marked as "Car 19" but for the first few years one simply didn't exist.  Rumor has it that in the "Testing" area of the queue line the remnants of Car 19 lurked but I was personally never able to find it. Now with Test Track being completely re-themed and refurbished, we may never know.


Now, before you panic.. the ride wasn't open yet when this happened! It's what is normally called "A dry test run" when no one, not even ride dummy's are in the ride vehicle.  So no humans or dummy's where hurt in the testing of this ride.. just the wall!
This also wouldn't be reported as an accident. It was technically still testing, it let them fix a flaw in the computer systems that otherwise would have existed without a heavy testing period. So now if communications did somehow get cut off between the cars and the computer system the ride can and will Emergency stop the entire ride, even in the middle of the speed run.

This has been the Legend of Car 19.

What happened to the Characters in Flight Balloon?

Cause I have to tell you, I was confused as hell when I came home from a lovely weekend out to hear that all of Disney's "Characters in Flight" balloons around the world had been shut down.. some even removed very quickly.  I had to contact a friend to even find out what on earth they where talking about because somehow my brain-in-vacation-mode didn't connect the dots!

Well naturally when I got home and sat down for some serious internet searching to try and find an answer! After a little while I came across what many are suspecting is the reason, so I'm here to share it with the rest of you!

Five Hurt in Ocean Park Balloon Plunge

Five people where injured when the same type of balloon which operates as Disney's "Characters in Flight" sprung a leak and suddenly became very close friends with gravity.

"The problem was a rupture

in the gas-filled bag. Park officials refused to provide details, but some witnesses said the gash was more than three meters wide." 

 Well Folks, I think after that article and some really shocking pictures it's easy to see that Disney would quickly bring down their own fleet. However I'm surprised to find out the balloon at Downtown Disney is Orlando, Florida has been completely removed. Perhaps it's simply for a detailed check of all operating items and the balloon its-self but I suspect this could be a permanent closure and full removal for this pay-per-ride attraction.  The balloons in Disneyland and Disneyland Paris are also closed until further notice, no word of their complete removal has been posted yet to my knowledge.

I'll post more information if any becomes available, so please stay tuned!