Celestial Park - General Discussion Thread

[UOR92]

Can we…stop doing this? I mean, I’m happy to not read this thread if I’m the minority, but this is fertile ground for a lot of unnecessary speculation, morbidity, etc that is just that - unnecessary and borderline cold.

Obviously I want to be respectful as this is a horrible, horrible tragedy. May God help the family this man has. I just don’t think that some of the conversation is helpful or beneficial. And it seems better safe than sorry to just stop with the Reddit style investigative work. Mods, feel free to tell me it isn’t an issue and I’ll refrain from this thread for a time.

 

[mccgavin]

Can we…stop doing this? I mean, I’m happy to not read this thread if I’m the minority, but this is fertile ground for a lot of unnecessary speculation, morbidity, etc that is just that - unnecessary and borderline cold.

Obviously I want to be respectful as this is a horrible, horrible tragedy. May God help the family this man has. I just don’t think that some of the conversation is helpful or beneficial. And it seems better safe than sorry to just stop with the Reddit style investigative work. Mods, feel free to tell me it isn’t an issue and I’ll refrain from this thread for a time.

It is very much appropriate to voice these concerns. A lot of us are on the same page as you here. This kind of speculation can be in poor taste.

 

[JohnHammondsCane]

I’ll say.. this community is amazing. Just checked the GoFundMe and it was over $20k! Let’s hit $30k for this man’s family.

 

[tielo]

My mother language isn't English but I know that medical terms often can mean something else than what you think it is.
Hearing "Blunt Impact Trauma (injuries)" sounds like the person what hit with something but if you take the time to google it it can mean a lot of thing but not necessarily something coming from the outside of the body.
Look at this side that explains is fully. https://www.osmosis.org/answers/blunt-trauma
I, for instance, had osteoporosis. It was diagnosed but it can also be undiagnosed. If I'd cough I could break my back or ribs, if I'd pick up a bottle I could break my wrist and if I would ride a coaster with g-forces I could be crushed, literally. That could result to my death and would be called a Blunt Impact death.
It's beyond sad and horrible what is happened with this person but speculations is, due to the lack of our knowledge not the smartest thing to do.

 

[tommyhawkins]

This situation seems to fit within the swiss cheese model of everything lining up to bring upon a very sad and upsetting outcome.
We might never know, with stuff like litigation and PR factoring in, exactly what caused this - there may be clues through mitigation measures but thats okay if we don't learn every detail. The most important thing is that it doesn't happen again but I think it's clear that mitigation will probably be much more nuanced than simply closing a ride that is part of a family of rides that gets millions of riders every year with no incident.

I would just caution against believing so-called eyewitnesses, stress does a lot of funny things to memory when someone is not expecting something to happen. also any of the "this TM said this... is going to happen...." TMs will be the last to find out, after a decision is made, not before for the very reason their employers need to manage the narrative.
I worked a job where I trained for the worse-case medical scenarios all the time, and when it happened people still made mistakes so all those ride ops working that night did the absolute best they could at the time with the training they had and help came quickly they should be commended for that not thrown under the bus- i hope they get the right support with this.

Clearly Mr Zavala absolutely loved the park, and specifically the ride and the money raised for his family is so kind. If we can learn anything from this tragedy it's that it's important to take care of yourself and others when you're out having fun all day at a park.

 

[mainejeff]

I have not read any of this except the prior post by Tommy. I will just say that I was shocked to see that the deceased guest was wheelchair bound and hear that he had a spinal condition. My shock comes from him choosing to ride despite the posted warnings. I am also perplexed that anyone not able to safely ride is allowed to step foot into the ride vehicle. This case will open up a whole can or worms for the theme park industry IMO. The theme park companies are responsible for safe operations ( integrity of physical ride, safe operating practices) but consumers have the responsibility to their own bodies by making sound decisions about what their bodies can safely handle. Just a bad situation all around.

 

[AustinT]

I am also perplexed that anyone not able to safely ride is allowed to step foot into the ride vehicle.

IIRC, most rides allow wheelchair bound quests to ride as long as they can transfer themselves from their chair to the ride vehicle unassisted. Although this very sad case has shown that there are possibly even more restrictions that may need to be taken into account for rides such as these. It seems that the guest not having muscular control of their lower legs may have been a factor in this and I don't recall rides having strict rules about something like that. They have rules about amputees and the location of the amputation point but that was all I believe.

 

[SkiBum]

yeah all of us have rode rollercoasters many many times, because you can go from park to park and no one knows, I realize that you can just go from ride to ride and repeat them a lot, but if he was in a wheelchair from a spinal injury maybe that many times was a problem?

and with wait times being long in general on parks, I do not ever recall being able to ride any coaster that much on the same day.
were the wait times so low that he could repeat it so often?

I rode Top Gun/The Bat seven times in a row without exiting at Kings Island. Got a little motion sick but that's on me. I have ridden multiple coasters more than six times in one day that were far more intense. The thing is that it is the rider's responsibility to make the right choice. A theme park cannot and should not (unless it is extremely obvious). The rides have safety features and warnings to assist people with those decisions but it is absurd to suggest that a park should limit anyone on how many times they can ride something.

As many have said, this is the time to respect the family and their loss. It isn't the time to rush to report on the how/why and not the time to determine what changes need to be made.