Reports of Injuries at King's Island Park - wcpo.com 7/9

[Joshrzmeup]

I'm not surprised this happened. This ride has been known to give people head and neck injuries as it is, which is why I refuse to ride it. That sucker hurts, and that lap bar is so tight, it almost crushed me the last time I rode it, which was about 2 years ago. And they just re-did the parts of the ride that had the most complaints during the parks downtime, too. We were driving past the park at that time and saw some ambulances there and just thought it was someone who had passed out from heat exhaustion or something at the waterpark.
And can someone explain to me how to quote the article, I forgot, or else i'd do it here.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/2006/local/...island_ax.html

[MickeyMoose]

More from the http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...WS01/399990108


This is looking bad.

[testtrack321]

I'm a coaster FREAK.

I road SOB once.......

that is all I ever wanted to ride again.

TEAR IT DOWN!

[Joshrzmeup]

They must have changed the cars to chest restraints this season instead of the lap bars and seatbelts thinking it would make it less bumpy and jolty, guess not.
I hate that ride in general, and it's one of 3 rides that I won't go on at the park, it hurts too much.
Something needs to be done with that ride...too many complaints about it and now this...so sad.

[FrumiousBoojum]

Overall, the coaster design at King's Island is horrible. The Outer Limits, for example, just always left me with a headache and sore ears -- that's all the coaster does is bounce your head around in the restraints for the entire duration of the ride! And all of their coasters are some of the bumpiest rides I've ever been on. King Cobra is my most hated, though. After standing in line for 2 hours, who came up with the idea to make us stand for an entire ride? Not to mention that coaster has been known to just stop in the middle of a loop, making the riders hang upside down for a while.

If you want good coasters, Cedar Point. Smooth rides everywhere.

I have not been back to King's Island since they opened Son of Beast. But this isn't surprising considering all the problems they had since it opened.

[Dutchman]

They've taken the OTSR's off of Flight of Fear and have gone to a new lap bar restraint a year or two ago. It's a different ride now. Just for the record, Kings Island is now a Cedar Fair park, the deal was sealed a week and a half ago.

[Joshrzmeup]

They need to do something with that ride. You can hear that sucker going up the lift hill and then down when you're in the far back portion of the parking lot! That's how loud it is. Some park officials are saying that the metal track was slightly off the wooden track in the loop area, but it hasn't been confirmed.

If the park sues the makers before the ride opens because the ride is structurally unsound, and yet the ride still opens, what does that say?

Oh, and they got rid of King Cobra like 5 years ago because the company making the parts went bankrupt, but the cars are still kept on the floor inside of Flight Of Fear.

[FrumiousBoojum]

Glad to hear they finally got rid of that awful coaster...

The last time I've been to an Ohio park was in 2000, 2 days after I got my new car (I wound up losing my car in the parking lot for a couple of hours). That park was Cedar Point.

Pretty pathetic, I guess... just never get the time or money to go to the parks.

[ToyGuy]

I rode the Son of Beast twice while on vacation last Thursday and loved it. The lap bar is tight for guys like me who are over 6 feet tall. It is an aggressive ride that really shakes you around but hey, it has the word BEAST in it's name. The ride was pretty shaky but not as bad as in years past... But then, I didn't have the novelty of going from 75mph to 0 in a quarter second.

[tloolgb]

Hmm. I am really interested to find out what happened. I mean it made it back to the station...so soemthing ran normal...but if people came back bleeding in the mouth or have confirmed broken chest bones then something serious happened...
..but what is throwing me off is it made it back to the station. To me if it hit something or jumped the track it wouldn't have made it back, from either catching on something or losing too much inertia.

[Joshrzmeup]

According to the prelim reports, cracked and splintered wood on a downward hill caused the jolt just after the trains rode past it. Officials say that they are still not ruling out operator error or other possible causes.

Isn't this the sort of thing they check for when doing the early morning walk-throughs, and test runs, as they claim they do, especially on a wooden coaster that goes up to 75 mph?

And considering that the ride was opened when the park was filing a lawsuit against the company that built it because it was structurally unsound, i'm not surprised this is what happened.

[MickeyMoose]

State inspectors shut down the Son of Beast roller coaster indefinately after finding “structural problems” with the ride this morning.

A timber – one of the ride's wooden support beam– is “cracked and had actually splintered in places,” said Fred Dailey, director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture this afternoon.

Dailey and his team walked the tracks today to figure out what went wrong on the ride Sunday that sent 27 people to local hospitals. The ride has been shut down since 4:45 p.m. Sunday.

Only two people remain hospitalized this afternoon, park officials said.

“It was obvious there was a failure of the timber and maybe more than one,” said Dailey.

While the problem would not have caused the train to leave the track, it could have caused a depression that would have created a bump in the ride, he said. That would explain riders’ complaints that they felt a sharp jolt while on the ride.

The problem timbers are on a short section of track on one of the coaster’s hills. Dailey says it likely broke at the time of the accident or one or two rides prior.

The Department of Agriculture is responsible for annually inspecting all amusement park rides in the state from go-carts to waterslides to roller coasters.
The Son of Beast was inspected on May 19 and no problems were found.

The coaster will remain closed until the state completes its investigation. It could take days or months.

The department will also determine if there are any other safety issues with the ride.
Dailey said this is the first time a problem has been reported with Son of Beast.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060710/NEWS01/307100020

[Joshrzmeup]

News stations around here are saying that by the time the records are looked at carefully, the ride more fully inspected, passengers talked to, etc, the ride could be closed for a min of 6 weeks at this time.

I don't think this will hurt King's Island, even though SOB is one of their biggest and most popular rides, but I think people might be leery to go on it's predecessor, since that's also a wooden ride that, for all we know, might have the same problems. But as long as they fix the problem and really look over every aspect of the ride to make it more safe, then people shouldn't care much.

[MickeyMoose]

Originally Posted by Joshrzmeup

News stations around here are saying that by the time the records are looked at carefully, the ride more fully inspected, passengers talked to, etc, the ride could be closed for a min of 6 weeks at this time.

I don't think this will hurt King's Island, even though SOB is one of their biggest and most popular rides, but I think people might be leery to go on it's predecessor, since that's also a wooden ride that, for all we know, might have the same problems. But as long as they fix the problem and really look over every aspect of the ride to make it more safe, then people shouldn't care much.

I also live in the Cincinnati area I have a season pass to Kings Island I will be at the park on Friday. The Beast the ride you called the predecessor was not built by the same people who built Son Of Beast. Also The Beast is alot slower. I will see if I can get any pictures when I am at the park.

[mrcoaster]

King Cobra was removed in 2002 to make room for future expansion of that section of the park.

Flight of Fear was quite painful when it opened (one enthusiast described it on Usenet when it opened: "Sit on a couch and have two friends smack the side of your head back and forth with two phone books - that's what the ride is like." They removed the OTSRs a couple of years ago and now it operates with lap bars - many enthusiasts who once hated the ride now love it as a result of this change.

Son of Beast? Ouch! In a nutshell. That banked curve helix is just awful. Sit on a seat over the axle and you're going to be jackhammered all the way back to the station. They've done some restructuring/reprofiling once, but it just hasn't changed. Some PTC cars on it might help a little, but it's just not a fun ride at all. I was sorry to hear that people were hurt on it yesterday, but I've almost been waiting to hear more people complaining about this ride. Sorry, Sonny...you aren't your father's roller coaster (The Beast).