It’s a perfect day to spend at the amusement park!
The sun is shining, your whole day is wide open, which means you and your three friends
can spend the whole day riding the rides.
You’ve eaten some cotton candy, taken a spin on the tilt-a-whirl, and now you’re
ready to brave the park’s top attraction - Dragon’s Peak.
This fearsome roller coaster sends you down the steepest drop in the park and then sends
you upside down as you speed around a massive loop.
As you and your friends enter the line, you notice how perfectly themed the waiting area
is.
There’s a suit of armor, an old witch, and other details that make you feel like you
are standing in the middle of a medieval fantasy.
And as you and your friends approach the ride, you notice one more cool detail.
“Look!
They’ve even got a goblin operating the ride!”
The short, stubby-looking man with long ears and big teeth operating the ride looks up
suddenly.
“What did you say?”
“That’s a great goblin outfit, man!
Super-realistic makeup!”
“I’m not wearing any makeup!
This is my face!
You think I look like a goblin?”
“I mean, I thought this was a fantasy ride, and - “
“I get my looks from my mother’s side of the family!”
You try to apologize as you’re ushered into the final queue area to wait for the next
ride.
Your friends are seated in the next car in, but there’s no room for you, so you’ll
take the next one.
It rides up and you get into your favorite seat, right in the front.
You think it’s a little odd that you’re the only one seated in this car - there are
a lot of people on line!
But you don’t think too much about it as the not-a-goblin ride attendant presses down
on your lap bar, securing you in the seat.
He smirks at you as he presses the button, and you’re off!
The ride is as exciting as you heard!
You’re sent shooting up a hill, down a massive drop, and into the first loop!
You sail into the incline, turn upside down - and stop.
It takes you a second to realize this isn’t part of the ride, but your car isn’t moving
and you’re hanging upside down over a hundred feet above the park!
What are you going to do?
Your first thought is to wave your arms and call for help, but you’re so far away from
anyone that it’s unlikely anyone could hear you.
You’re looking at the track for other cars, but none seem to be coming.
At least you don’t have to worry about anyone crashing into you!
Your next thought is to reach for your cell phone and try to call for help.
You struggle to reach into your pocket, but the roller coaster seat harness is tight and
presses down on your lap and shoulder.
You’re grateful for that, because it’s going to keep you from slipping out of your
harness while hanging upside down.
But it’s going to make it very difficult to pull your phone out of your pocket, and
even if you got it out, you’re worried about dropping it more than a hundred feet above
the ground.
Not only would that be the end of your phone, but it could be dangerous for anyone on the
ground.
Besides, you’re pretty sure everyone can see you hanging there.
The good news is, you have a watch on your wrist, so you can keep track of the time.
It feels like you’ve been hanging upside down for half an hour already, and it’s
been - three minutes!
At least you can keep a sense of time.
You thought your grandpa was silly when he gave you that watch.
“You can’t trust that modern technology!
A good old wristwatch is reliable and will help you out when you can’t pull out your
phone!”
Guess grandpa knew what he was talking about.
But right now your priority is keeping sane and healthy while waiting for rescue.
You used to do handstands as a little kid, so you know all about how quickly you get
dizzy when hanging upside down.
The second you flip upside down, your blood starts to rush to your head.
That wreaks all sorts of havoc inside your body, starting with the shift of weight from
all around your body to your upper-body organs.
Your organs start to put extra weight on your lungs, making it harder to breathe easily.
Your heart has to do more work because more blood is flowing towards it, and you can already
start to feel it racing.
And that’s not even starting on what happens to your head and brain.
As the pressure builds in your head, you start to feel more pressure in your eyes, which
can cause double vision and headaches.
Of course, this only happens if you’ve been hanging upside down for a few hours or more.
This isn’t the first time you’ve been stuck on a ride, and you’re sure the amusement
park’s technical team is going to be on the case.
You remember when you were a kid and the boat got stuck in the Storybook Canyon ride with
your parents.
They told you to keep your hands inside the vehicle, stay calm, and listen to the instructions
from the intercom.
It seemed like it was forever, but eventually the boats started moving again.
It turned out a guy had fallen in the canal while getting off and security had to fish
him out.
That was a lot less scary than this, but the rules are the same - you know that the most
dangerous thing you can do right now is try to mess with the harness or do anything to
interfere with the ride.
As long as you’re locked into your seat, you’re not in any danger - as long as this
is resolved quickly enough.
Your mind is racing, and you try to recall how other situations like this have ended.
You read a few articles about amusement park disasters a while back - maybe you should
have remembered them before deciding to come here!
Most roller coaster stops happen on flat surfaces, such as ascents or descents.
They’re usually caused by power failures, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here
- you can see other rides functioning fine in the park below.
Sometimes a safety feature gets triggered accidentally, causing an emergency stop at
the most uncomfortable place.
That’s probably what happened here - unless the not-a-goblin did it deliberately!
You know you can’t let the blood pool in your head too much, so you decide to keep
moving.
You lift your head as much as you can, tilt it from side to side, trying to keep the blood
flowing.
It’s only been about ten minutes and you’re already starting to feel dizzy with a bad
headache coming on.
When other roller coaster riders were stuck upside down for over half an hour, like on
the X-Coaster at Magic Springs and Crystal Falls, several people went to the hospital
to be checked out.
In the worst incident like this in the United States, at Six Flags America in Gurnee, Illinois,
a group of people were stranded upside down on The Demon for over two hours!
Not only did four people wind up hospitalized, but the park wound up paying $442,000 after
a jury ruled against them!
Well, if they don’t get you down from here soon, at least you might wind up rich.
You’re starting to feel nauseous, and you’re worried you’re going to spray all that cotton
candy and funnel cake over the park below!
Fortunately, you hear a humming sound and you see a large crane with someone in the
basket starting to rise up towards you!
A man in a hard hat pulls out a megaphone.
“Are you okay up there?”
“I’m starting to get dizzy!
I think I’m going to pass out if I’m hanging here much longer!”
“Hold on!
We’re going to get you out of there.”
The medical team needs to hurry.
It’s common for people who are stuck hanging upside down too long to need to be hospitalized,
and a man who was upside down for over twenty-four hours while trapped in a cave even died of
asphyxiation due to the pressure on his lungs.
A similar fate befell a hiker whose foot got stuck while rappelling into a canyon.
He was left hanging for an entire night when he couldn’t free himself and by the time
rescuers were able to get to him it was too late.
There's plenty of other health risks from hanging upside down too.
Our blood vessels are designed to work against gravity and keep our blood from pooling in
our feet.
When you’re hanging upside down the body doesn’t know how to reverse that process
and keep blood from pooling in the brain instead.
While a lack of a blood flow to the brain is really bad news, too much is equally dangerous
and can lead to a brain hemorrhage - which is bleeding in or around the brain.
It’s rough on your other organs too.
The heart has to work overtime trying to pump your blood in a direction it’s not used
to, and can have trouble getting enough blood to different organs, and you can even experience
heart failure from it working overtime.
That won’t be a concern for you, as
You can see the man in the crane go back down and start to confer with people on the ground.
You know that past solutions for people stuck upside down on roller coasters have involved
using ropes to pull the cart back to the starting gate, like was done in China in 2011, but
you can’t imagine that working given how wild this ride was!
More often, they’ll crank the car back to a standing position and rescue you from there
once you’re closer to the ground.
If they can’t figure out any of those options, they’ll strap you into a retractable harness
and then cut away the restraining bar before lowering you to the ground.
That takes a lot of manpower and is a tricky operation, so you hope they won’t have to
do that!
As it turns out, they don’t!
A technician is raised up to the car and looks at the mechanism holding you in place.
It doesn’t take long for him to radio back to the team on the ground.
“It’s the emergency brake!
It got triggered when he was at the top of the hill.
If you release it in the control console, it should get him moving again!”
There’s a slow whirring noise in the car, and as quickly as you stopped, it’s over.
The car, which has some ropes attached to it to keep it oriented correctly, slides out
of the loop and to a controlled stop at the base of the track before slowly being towed
to the end of the ride.
The harness is manually released, and you’re lifted out of the car by the medical team
on site.
It’s a good thing, too.
You were only upside-down for about twenty minutes, but you’re extremely dizzy and
your legs feel like jelly.
The rush of your body reorienting itself and your blood going back where it should be makes
you feel like you’re about to pass out.
the medical team checks you out.
Fortunately, you weren’t hanging upside down long enough to cause any serious damage.
They tell you to take it easy though, no more crazy rides for the rest of the day.
That won’t be a problem - you’re definitely not in the mood for any more roller coasters
right now!
Your friends are waiting for you as soon as the medical team gets done, and you can see
not-a-goblin being escorted away by security and placed in handcuffs.
Your friends tell you he sabotaged the ride to leave you trapped, and the park is definitely
going to press charges if you’ll testify.
You’re met by the park manager, who apologizes profusely and offers you a free annual pass
as an apology for your experience.
You don’t know when you’ll want to get on a roller coaster again, but you’re glad
to be off that one.
The nausea is passing quickly now that you’re upright, and you think the perfect way to
end this day is another funnel cake!
Your ride on “Dragon’s Peak” was harrowing, but it could have been worse.
Now go watch “The Worst Amusement Park Disasters” for just how bad it can really get, or check
out “I Was Trapped Underwater for Three Days” for an escape from a much tighter
spot than a roller coaster loop.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time!