Louisville, KY—Ok, the following article was taken from cnn.com, and does nothing to help the current amusement park trend of taking people as close to death as possible, scaring the shit out of them, and returning them to their friends and family, pale, shivering, and ready to spew their $36 lunch. The traditional press tends to sanitize the news. Allow me to add some much needed human emotion back into this freeze-dried snippet.
A girl's feet were cut off Thursday when a free-fall thrill ride malfunctioned at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Amusement Park in Louisville, Kentucky, police said.
Ok, so let me get this straight, when this ride malfunctions, it chops off your feet? What the hell is that?!
A cord wrapped around the 16-year-old's feet and severed them at her ankles while she was on the "Superman Tower of Power," a police dispatcher said. The girl was taken to a local hospital.
"Superman Tower of Power" is apparently a euphemism for "Superman Tower of
Possible De-feet". Six Flags Entertainment is considering the implementation of some kind of triage or mobile hospital on park grounds, as it expects more of its aging, poorly maintained thrill rides to lop off extremities or otherwise deform its patrons.
The incident took place shortly before 5 p.m. ET, according to Six Flags spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg. The park remained open, but the ride in question was shut down and will remain so until the full investigation is complete, Goldberg said.
This is when they discover that when the ride malfunctions, it chops off people's feet! They will then fix the faulty wire, and rename the ride to something more appropriate, like "Six Flags Feet Frenzy".
During the ride, passengers are lifted to 177 feet, suspended momentarily and then dropped, according to the park's Web site.
Apparently, they're lifted by a razor sharp wire wrapped around their feet.
Passengers drop 154 feet at 54 mph, stopping "just 20 terrifying feet above the pavement," it adds.
...where 2 more feet await them when they get off the ride.
"Feel the adrenalin rush of rapid ascent to the dizzying summit. That's when the Kryptonite kicks in and suddenly you're plummeting 177 harrowing feet to the pavement below," the description says.
The dizzy feeling you have is actually from blood loss. A bit misleading, yes, but they downplay the intensity of the sensation.
The ride was introduced in 1995.
Josef Mengele completed construction of the ride in 1994, but it required a year of testing on the homeless and indigent.
You can read the article without my commentary, at http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/21/six.flags.accident/index.html.