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Ride Accidents


pluk

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You can never make something 100% safe, but you can do everything possible to minimise the risk.

 

It's funny but my dad is an engineer and won't go on anything, he was watching us on Spinball on Friday and asked me how often the cars and tracks were crack and ultrasonically tested, I couldn't answer, anybody know?

 

 

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As you say it's easy to make assumptions, people tend to do that a lot nowadays.

 

About 20 years ago a friend of mine had his arm 99% severed (it was literally just attached by the main artery), at the time everbody assumed he'd lost the arm, but fortunately it was reattached, the point being when you see someone with their arm hanging off, it's not such a huge leap to sssume the arm is gone.

 

If I were the family I wouldn't be celebrating just yet that his arm has been "saved", ride injury history is a good indicator of why not.

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Note.  If anyone is generally interested in the biases associated with Eyewitness Testimony, feel free to see this powerpoint regarding some of the factors explaining the unreliability of it

 

Link

 

Credit goes to Dr Paul Pope at the University of Birmingham

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  • 2 months later...

People 'thrown from ride' in Scotland (caution, 'The Sun' link - you will feel dirty after clicking), broken bones and facial injuries.

 

Iain Brown

 

Looks to be a Tagada, which you are not restrained for anyway, so a bit of an odd one. Seems likely that they were being foolish in some way for that to happen. Unless the op managed to bounce the ride too violently, which seems pretty unlikely to me.

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  • 1 month later...

Several news outlets reporting that either four, two, one or no one has died on the rapids ride at Dreamworld Australia. A good example to anyone out there that news outlets are getting more and more guilty at posting any information regardless of accuracy now.

 

Edit to add. Park has confirmed three people have died. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37759162
Further Edit: Now confirmed at four dead.

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1 hour ago, Mark9 said:

Several news outlets reporting that either four, two, one or no one has died on the rapids ride at Dreamworld Australia. A good example to anyone out there that news outlets are getting more and more guilty at posting any information regardless of accuracy now.

 

Edit to add. Park has confirmed three people have died. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37759162
Further Edit: Now confirmed at four dead.

Tragic incident at this park on their Thunder River Rapids, at Dreamworld, on Australia's Gold Coast. Apparently there are four adult fatalities. The ride appears a standard rapids type but the conveyor is an open ladder system.

Very sad for all concerned.

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Horrible incident. Looks like a boat has tipped up at the point it should engage with the conveyor, throwing the occupants into the water and mechanism bellow.

 

39AF624B00000578-3869530-The_incident_took_place_on_the_Thunder_River_Rapids_ride_picture-a-77_1477379231197.jpg

 

I can only imagine this can happen of one of the slats falls off or fails in some way, most likely constantly wet wood rotting through I'd have thought. I expect all other wooden slat conveyors will be having an inspection in the coming days.

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31 minutes ago, Cernuschi said:

To me it looks like the turntable may have stopped but the lift kept on going forcing one of the boats to rise up on the other. Sensor failure possibly.

 

Yes, that would certainly make sense as a possibility. I can't really tell from the pics if this is the top or bottom of the lift hill.

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Having just seen the footage on BBC news, this is certainly at the bottom of the lift,  not the top, so I can't see it could be a conveyor vs turntable error.

 

I wonder if it was simply the boat behind being abe to get under the float of the one which flipped, if it was unevenly laden, and the force of the water pushed it right up and over. 

 

I can't get my head around any mechanics of a moving conveyor flipping the boat in that direction, even with slats missing, unless the conveyor was somehow running in reverse. 

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19 minutes ago, pluk said:

Having just seen the footage on BBC news, this is certainly at the bottom of the lift,  not the top, so I can't see it could be a conveyor vs turntable error.

 

I wonder if it was simply the boat behind being abe to get under the float of the one which flipped, if it was unevenly laden, and the force of the water pushed it right up and over. 

 

I can't get my head around any mechanics of a moving conveyor flipping the boat in that direction, even with slats missing, unless the conveyor was somehow running in reverse. 

Sadly, I now think that if the weight distribution was to the lower side as the dinghy was raised, it would continue raising on the higher side, causing those on board to fall into the conveyor.

 

Terrible for those concerned, their family and friends and those around including the park staff.

 

Sorry, going against my own rules, I have started giving an opinion which I am not qualified to do.

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19 minutes ago, pluk said:

Having just seen the footage on BBC news, this is certainly at the bottom of the lift,  not the top, so I can't see it could be a conveyor vs turntable error.

From some of the images it still looks like there is a round turntable next to the lift hill (the lift hill drops slightly at the end of the incline) but I could be wrong.

 

Mainly going off the images on our favourite news website ;) and there is also a video showing the lift working:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3869782/Tragedy-Australian-theme-park-four-people-CRUSHED-death-Thunder-River-Rapids-water-ride-flips-over.html

 

 

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2 hours ago, pluk said:

Having just seen the footage on BBC news, this is certainly at the bottom of the lift,  not the top, so I can't see it could be a conveyor vs turntable error.

 

 

It definitely looks like the top of the conveyor belt before the turntable. Just trying to get my head around how it flips in the opposite direction to the way it's moving once it has hit into the stuck raft at the beginning of the turntable. 

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If the photo layout I've seen on an aussie news site is right it was at the point where the boats are returned back into the station, think how viking river rapids dumps you into the station at legoland, a bigger version of that.

 

The easiest way to explain it is put two paper plates on the worktop, hold one and moderately push the other, chances are the one you're pushing will go under the one your holding, or over it.  Factor in the ride, the upturned boat was coming down a ramp so it had momentum, the other boat was jammed, probably being weighted down by the water trying to push it, the boat coming down the ramp would in theory have ridden up the front boats rubber dingy part and the conveyor belt would continue to push the boat (like the plate), it's only going to do two things, flip up on it's end/side, or stay in place until the laws of physics take over or someone stops the conveyor.  This doesn't even consider where the people were sitting, four adults and two kids could be loaded unevenly.

 

What I dare not think about is one report I read said they were having to bring in heavy industrial equipment to dismantle the ride and recover the bodies, and another that said some of the victims "suffered immediate injuries inconsistent with continued life" urgh.

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Sorry to double post but got sent this by a friend out there, bit of a ****storm going on because Joe Public thinks general medical terms are heartless, but it also gives more info about the accident:

 

http://www.news.com.au/national/ambulance-officer-slammed-for-saying-four-dreamworld-dead-suffered-injuries-incompatible-with-life/news-story/8d090b77b4f942237839b488b6567637

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Another thing I saw was the station was a rotating one like Thorpe/Alton/Lego but they stopped using it and used a different stop/start procedure to load and offload because of "safety concerns" over it's movement, ironic if that was a contributing factor.

 

I have to say though whoever thought having an unprotected open mechanical conveyor that easily accessible was a good idea needs to find a new career, we stopped doing that in factories 30 years ago because the risk was too high.

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So if the same kind of incident were to happen at somewhere like Thorpe the people would not have been as badly injured? Is the conveyor different there?

Very awful accident, a miracle that the two children managed to survive but horrible that they had to watch family die.


The wooden slats at Thorpe are much closer together. You could certainly get injured, but I don't think you'd fall through to get crushed.

Really horrible incident!

Partaking in geekery since 1985

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New reports criticising the management on their handling of the accident... saying they'd been in touch with families etc, and hadn't. 

 

In fairness to Nick and Merlin, the way they handled the Alton accident was textbook, took full responsibility and seemed to really care. 

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