So on Friday, a man attended the Carowinds Amusement Park in North Carolina and
noticed something little problematic with the ride.
Just this massive crack that seemed to be out of place, seemed to not,
you know, need to be there, made him kind of question the safety of the ride.
So let's take a look at this video so I can describe exactly what he saw and
why it was a problem, so there it is, you can see it highlighted or spotlighted.
There's a major crack in, like, one of the pillars, I guess, for the roller coaster,
which is pretty scary.
The man who recorded the video is named Jeremy Wagner, and
he noticed the crack while he was waiting for his daughter and
niece who had already ridden the ride several times.
Okay, so I'm going to pause for comment from John.
>> No, no, no no,.
>> Why not, John?
>> Obviously they need to shut it down, and
I'm probably never gonna go on any ride again after that,
that looked like the entire track could just slide off of there.
I know that there's a bunch of different things that are securing it and
everything, so I get like, from the point of view of an engineer,
why you might not be freaked out about that, but no, I'm not going on that.
That's absolute madness, I saw Final Destination growing up, no,
I already feel super uncomfortable on them, it's amazing that they work at all.
It's amazing that there aren't more deaths than there are, and
there are a good number, by the way, if you wanna ruin your day, google it.
Google the number of people who die in roller coasters every year,
but yeah, that's obviously unacceptable.
It's weird how much a willingness to risk other people's lives have been
normalized in America.
This is nothing compared to the Pandemic, obviously,
where a lot of people took as like, the core of their entire personality that they
don't mind potentially killing other people.
But if you're a worker, I guess it's not up to them, perhaps,
to shut it down, but I would refuse to continue running the ride if I saw that.
>> Yeah, and look, I'm gonna give people the benefit of the doubt and
just assume that they didn't know about the crack until this gentleman
alerted their attention to it.
Is that crazy, am I being unfair?
>> I mean.
>> Too fair.
>> There was definitely some period, I don't know the specifics,
I don't know how long.
>> Well, let's get to some of the specifics.
One of the details to this story that I thought
was interesting is what the ride is named, it's called fury 325.
Fury 325 is the tallest, fastest,
longest giga coaster in North America,
with a peak height of 325ft and reaching 95 miles per hour.
A giga roller coaster has a drop between 300 and 399feet,
and that's according to Kings Island Amusement Park in Ohio.
>> No, I don't need to do that [LAUGH], I don't know,
I get that there are people who are, like, super into it.
>> I'm past that point in my life.
>> Yeah, it's not for me either.
>> This job is thrilling enough, let's just put it that way.
The roller coaster of my day-to-day working here is more than enough, and
by the way, when Wagner tried to your point, John,
when he tried to warn the staff about it, he wasn't taken seriously at first.
So he says, quote, I felt there was no urgency in any of the employees.
And even after they had me airdrop the video,
the guest services person walked off and said, quote, I'll send this to somebody,
and they just turned around and walked off, nonchalant?
>> Yeah.
>> Now, they might have walked off and alerted someone about it, maybe.
Do you think if you saw that and you were gonna go alert someone,
would you walk to them?
I feel like I would run as fast as I
possibly could to stop other people being on there.
>> For sure, no, I mean, I would have the fear of God in me.
>> By the way, I'm not faulting the worker, obviously.
>> Yeah. >> They need to do more maintenance,
more checks of this sort of thing, but it's also possible that the people who
work there have the experience every day of being there.
They know what's normal and what's not.
So if they're being nonchalant, maybe this is more normal than we would assume.
>> Yeah, I'm afraid they know that.
>> Maybe things like this happen, it's not actually the end of the world,
maybe they see more things than get out to the news and viral videos.
>> I think you might have a point there.
>> Really fast, you remember the story we did of the plane?
Like the wing was being repaired with tape, from what I read after doing,
the story is somewhat common, they do stuff like that.
They fix these problems with the metal, with tape or whatever, so that's a thing
that seems crazy, but it's normal to them, the question is, should it be normal?
>> Yeah. >> Should it be normalized?
>> I mean, I don't.
>> What if they just taped the roller coaster?
>> Here's, what should be normalized, urgency to shut down a ride.
Once you notice a major defect that could get people injured or
potentially killed, given how high up that ride goes and
how far down that drop would be?
>> The giga drop. >> The giga drop, exactly.
But look, the person that is a real American hero here is Wagner himself,
because he was persistent, so he alerted the employee about it.
Honestly, I'm unclear in regard to what the employee did,
he says the employee was nonchalant, I'll take his word for it.
Luckily, he notified the fire department about this issue, and
that was when the ride was shut down, when the fire department got involved.
Now, the ride has been closed since for inspections and repairs, so
Wagner very possibly saved people's lives here and I commend him for that.
You see something, say something, but is it just a one-off incident?
To your point, John?
Nearly 40,000 injuries were estimated last year on amusement attractions,
including rides, water slides, and inflatables, and
that's according to the Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Now, Carowinds has stated that all of their rides are subject to daily
inspections, but that seems unlikely given how big that crack was.
>> No, they mean daily inspections by people recording videos for TikTok,
it's a standardized service.
There's people walking around, sometimes they catch it, sometimes they don't.
>> And look, it's unknown what caused the crack, we don't know.
>> The fact that this is a crazy thing to build,
that it was an unnecessary thing to build.
>> Don't say that i don't think it's necessary. >> That it's built to
save money, that it's not like there's no reason to build it, like,
in the first place, it's crazy.
>> What's interesting, though, is, like, not everyone was equally
as concerned about that giant crab, so you feel terrified looking at that, right?
Not everyone.
So McLain Waddell is better known around Carowinds by his nickname,
the fury guy, it's therapy 15 to 40 times a day.
I tried to be there every day of the week before work,
after work, he told Channel Nine's Genevieve Curtis.
I mean, he's a thrill seeker, he's got an adrenaline rush every time he does it, so
he's addicted to it now.
He's clocked a record 10,442 rides on the park's flagship roller coaster,
including a dozen laps Friday night, shortly before the ride was shut down.
Waddell wasn't worried, quote it's steel, it's a stress fracture, things happen,
Waddell said, nobody was in danger, we were safe, I still loved it Friday night.
>> Look, it is likely that Waddell is correct, it's also possible that Waddell,
having ridden the ride more than 10,000 times, is just desperate for
it to change in literally any way.
And now the whole thing wobbles back and forth, he's like,
this is a variation, I'm kind of into it.
I remember reading in a book when I was much younger that one way that teachers
can move students in the right direction is you sort
of give them a reputation that they don't necessarily deserve.
Like, if you tell a first grade student you pay attention so well in class,
studies show that they will pay attention, better to live up to the reputation,
cuz everybody wants an identity.
When they started calling this guy the fury guy,
he was sort of obligated to go 15 to 40 times a day, like, that's who he is.
I feel bad, they should have given him a different reputation.
>> He seems to love it.
>> No, I'm so kidding.
>> And if it makes him happy,
I back his love affair with this roller coaster fully.
>> I just don't get it. >> I just hope they fix it in time so
he can go back to enjoying it as much as he does.
>> There is nothing I want to do 15 to 40 times a day that is too much of anything,
including very fun things.
>> No, I'm pretty sure I could find things I wanna do 15 to 40 times a day.
>> I don't know. >> I can't think of it at the moment, but
I'm sure there's something no cuddles with Charlie, belly rubs for Charlie.
>> Ten times is fine, I don't get the roller coasters, it's just not my thing.
>> Have you ever liked roller coasters?
>> I will do roller coasters, and I appreciate that they're thrilling, but
I also generally get sick after the thrilling part, and
then that just kind of ruins the day.
I just prefer, like, Pirates of the Caribbean,
I wanna go on a fairly slow moving thing with cool stuff happening around me that's
really I'm happy just for that.
The Winnie the Pooh ride, it's a small world after all.
>> Okay. The Jungle Cruise with the new changes.
>> The small world ride at Disneyland, I don't know for sure,
I'm just basing this on what I experienced the last time I was at Disney,
which was a few years ago.
It hasn't been updated since the park opened.
>> It's a throwback.
>> And given the fact that small world is all about celebrating different
cultures and I think the park opened in the 50s, if I'm not mistaken,
they should update the ride a little bit.
>> Yeah.
>> That's all I'm saying.
>> Honestly. They should update the ride.
>> Somehow, it's less, I think,
clearly offensive than many of the other rides which have been updated recently.
They're updating one of them in the near future,
they just did the Jungle Cruise recently.
>> Nice. >> I just find that stuff to be more
enjoyable.
>> I like the Jungle Cruise a lot.
>> Yeah, it's fun, I like the Sassy boat operator, that's always fun.
>> Yes, and all the fun jokes.
>> And I'm sure that they love the experience of saying those lines 70,
ten times a day, they say those lines more than Waddington goes on the fury.
>> His name is Waddell [LAUGH].
>> But Waddell. >> I that you gave him, like,
a fancy Waddington.
>> Waddington the III his descendant, every first male
descendant has to ride the fury as much as possible, or else the witch will win.
But yeah, no, I like the sassy dialogue, and
I've never seen a big crack in the boat.
>> Fair, either of us.
>> Sometimes on people, but not in the boat.
>> Same.