Buffalo, NY (WBEN) Area roller coaster enthusiasts are baffled over how a rider in Georgia died this week in a roller coaster incident. They say roller coasters are among the safest rides at amusement parks.
"It definitely was a tragedy, and it surprised me a lot," says Jay Ducharme of the WNY Coaster Club. "The coaster that it happened on is made by a company named Bollinger and Mabilard from Switzerland, and they're considered to be the Rolls Royce of roller coaster designers. Their coasters are usually really, really well built and very reliable. So hearing about the accident in Georgia really surprised me. I did not expect something like that to happen on one of their trains."
Ducharme says the difference between this and the incident 15 years ago at Darien Lake are different manufacturers, and the person who was riding on that was a double amputee. "That person had a lot more trouble hanging on to the ride and being secured in. Whereas in Georgia, it looked like the person didn't really have any disabilities that we know of, and we're still not sure exactly what happened if the restraint failed or if the guy tried to stand up, we don't know. And I'm very curious as to what exactly happened," says Ducharme.
Ducharme worked at amusement parks and says testing is rigorous. "What a park does not want is something like what happened in Georgia, because that then makes people question whether they should go to a park, so parks really are good at making sure their rides are safe. Like I said, I'm very curious as to what happened in this case because it should not have happened," says Ducharme.
Radio personality and coaster enthusiast John Anthony says he feels safe whenever he's on a North American roller coaster. "You definitely need to wear (restraints) when you're on the roller coaster. In this case, this specific roller coaster, because I have been on it, it's been around for 20 years. This specific one only had one restraint, and it was the one that goes up against your waist. I want to say it's like the bar that goes down. It didn't have the seatbelt secondary restraint. So I mean, but that's normal for this kind of coaster, and it's been operating that way for 20 years," says Anthony.
He believes the incident may have been a horrible malfunction. "Machines do malfunction. I mean, something might have happened where his restraint's the only one that came up," says Anthony. He says the closest coaster like that is at Canada's Wonderland, also owned by Six Flags.
Ducharme says a cause could be determined in a week.
