Number 8 Smiler Incident Found at Alton Towers, in the UK, the Smiler
rollercoaster owns the world record for most inversions, with riders being turned upside
down 14 times.
A major attraction at the park, the Smiler promised an exhilarating experience but its
reputation was marred by an incident that occurred on June the 2nd of 2015.
On that day, 5 people were severely injured, after a train carrying 16 passengers collided
with a stationary, empty train.
The latter had been dispatched for a test run and stalled because of a gust of wind.
The ride’s automated block system consequently shut it down but the park’s engineers overrode
it because they were unaware that the empty train was present on the tracks.
The train carrying the passengers thus crashed into it.
Two riders seated at the front, 19-year-old Vicky Balch and Leah Washington, aged 17,
suffered horrific injuries.
Balch’s right leg and Washington’s left leg required partial amputation.
The latter’s boyfriend was hospitalized with two broken knees caps and extensive hand
injuries.
He would later remember “I could just see blood, bone and flesh splattered on the carriage
in front”.
Daniel Thorpe, aged 27, was left with a collapsed lung and a fractured leg.
Chanda Chauhan, seated on the Smiler’s second row, needed surgery after having suffered
blood clots and a damaged liver.
The victims sued the park, in the accident’s aftermath, and its owners admitted blame.
Balch and Washington, who’d struggled adapting to life as amputees, reportedly received a
multi-million dollar payout while other victims were also compensated with six-figure sums.
Number 7 Anthony Theisen In March of 2014, a Wisconsin man was left
in critical condition following a rollercoaster incident at the Mt. Olympus Theme Park.
63-year-old Anthony Theisen was riding in the same cart as his wife, Kay, on the indoor
Opa!
Twister Steel Roller Coaster.
Looking back on the incident, Kay remembered that her husband’s lap bar became unlocked
as they went around a corner.
He was launched into the air, like a ragdoll, and impacted the concrete floor, sustaining
devastating injuries.
Theisen suffered four fractured vertebrae, broken toes and fingers, a dislocated shoulder,
a shattered scapula and life-threatening brain damage.
He was bleeding from the head but breathing on his own when the emergency services arrived
at the scene.
Theisen spent several days in a coma and, while he did wake up from it, the long-term
effects of his brain injury remained to be determined.
A police officer inspected the ride and checked the four lap bars on Theisen’s cart, several
times.
Three remained locked but the fourth, where the victim had been sitting, came loose every
time.
Opa! was permanently closed after the incident.
Number 6 Rosa Esparza In July of 2013, Rosa Esparza, aged 52, fell
to her death from the New Texas Giant rollercoaster, at Six Flags Over Texas, in Arlington.
Once the tallest wooden rollercoaster in the world, the ride was modified between 2009
and 2011, a refurbishment in which steel tracks were introduced.
However, even though the renovated rollercoaster had increased in height and came to include
a steeper drop angle, the safety features in the carts reportedly didn’t undergo an
upgrade.
That would change following Esparza’s tragic death.
According to eyewitnesses, the woman had expressed concerns regarding her lap bar, which hadn’t
come all the way down.
Yet, it did go close far enough for a computer to register it as locked.
As the rollercoaster reached a peak, Esparza was ejected from her seat and fell to her
death an estimated 75 feet.
Her partially-severed body was found wrapped around a support beam on the aluminum roof
of the Honky Tonk tunnel.
The woman’s daughter, who subsequently sued the park, was riding in the cart ahead, with
her husband, and witnessed Esparza being thrown from the rollercoaster.
As per the lawsuit, she then had to spend an “interminable time” on the ride, unaware
of her mother’s fate.
The suit was eventually settled for an undisclosed sum, without an admission of fault on the
park’s behalf.
New Texas Giant was closed following the incident and reopened in September of that same year
with redesigned restraint bars, pads, and seat belts installed on all its trains.
Number 5 Dawn Jankovic On June the 4th of 2021, Ohio woman Dawn Jankovic
was found unresponsive, next to her 17-year-old son, after riding “The Voyage” rollercoaster
at Indiana’s Holiday World & Splashin' Safari theme park.
47-year-old Jankovic was later pronounced dead at a local hospital but her passing was
considered a mystery as the ride didn’t appear to have any malfunctions or safety
violations.
According to her teenage son, Gunner, who wasn’t hurt in the incident, the woman hadn’t
been feeling sick and “was fine, the whole entire day.”
Then the coroner’s report was released which identified the tearing of an artery, severe
internal blood loss, and force from the rollercoaster as the main factors in her death.
The G-force of the ride had caused a rupture of her internal thoracic artery.
The blood vessel is paired, meaning there’s one on each side of the body, and it runs
from the clavicle to the ribcage, supplying the chest wall with blood from the heart.
Some rollercoasters subject riders to over 5Gs, which is similar to the forces experienced
by drag racers.
Repetitive sequences of acceleration and deceleration cause a jerking of the neck which can lead
to a torn artery.
If small, it will generally heal on its own but in more serious cases, such as Jankovic’s,
it can result in a fatal loss of blood.
Number 4 Formula 1 Accident In July of 2020, a 32-year-old woman suffered
a fatal fall from a rollercoaster in Oise, southern France.
The woman was reportedly celebrating her 2-year-old child’s birthday at Parc Saint-Paul, approximately
50 miles north of Paris.
It was her first visit to the theme park and she went on the Formula 1 Coaster, alongside
her husband.
According to eyewitnesses, as the rollercoaster made a turn, she was thrown from her seat
and over the safety barrier.
Her husband desperately tried to catch her by the feet but it was to no avail.
The woman’s bloodied body was later found at the bottom of the rollercoaster.
The emergency services immediately arrived at the scene but they were unable to revive
her.
It’s unclear if the ride’s operators would be held accountable for her death but the
Formula 1 Coaster does have a dark past.
In 2009, a 35-year-old woman died of cardiac arrest after being thrown from it.
However, Le Parisien reported that an investigation concluded she’d exhibited “inappropriate
behavior” on the ride and didn’t find the park liable for her death.
Number 3 Sand Blaster Incident In June of 2018, nine people were hospitalized
following the derailment of a train from the Sand Blaster rollercoaster in Daytona Beach,
Florida.
Mother-of-two Amanda Bostic, aged 34, was among those who were injured.
She and a coworker were on a business trip from Kentucky when they decided to go on the
ride.
Bostic remembered that, from the outset, the rollercoaster didn’t feel stable and kept
shaking.
It then started gaining speed.
Bostic and her colleague were seated at the front when, after making a turn, the rollercoaster
derailed.
The front car was left dangling, with its nose pointing down, barely attached to anything
except for the car behind it.
Amidst the metallic screeching and terrified screams, Bostic fell 35 feet, bouncing off
support beams, “like a pinball”.
She survived, but suffered a concussion, chipped teeth, a foot injury and a massive bruise
on her arm.
Rescuers moved swiftly but some riders were trapped for over half an hour, afraid to move
for fear of causing the rollercoaster to drop further down.
In the aftermath, an investigation revealed a number of problems with the ride, including
safety cables improperly secured, cracked supports as well as a number of damaged deck
braces.
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Number 2 La Feria Tragedy In September of 2019, 2 people were killed
and 5 others were injured at La Feria amusement park, in Mexico City, after a rollercoaster
flew off its tracks and plunged into the ground.
A mechanical failure on a ride called the Quimera caused a car to come loose and fall
from an estimated height of 35 feet.
Videos that subsequently circulated on social media would show it nearly flipping upside
down and then crashing into a metal loop.
A park vendor reported seeing one rider as he was sent flying from the cart and several
others hitting their heads as the rollercoaster derailed at speed, with the final cart dangling
behind it.
The authorities didn’t release the identities of the victims, but they were reported as
two males, aged 18 and 25.
The police launched an investigation while treating the incident as a case of negligent
homicide.
Number 1 James Hackemer In July of 2011, U.S. Army Sgt.
James Hackemer died in a rollercoaster accident at the Darien Lake Theme Park, in Upstate
New York.
29-year-old Hackemer was a local hero and an Iraq war veteran.
In 2008, during his second tour in the country, his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive
device.
He was left with horrific injuries that resulted in the loss of both his legs, two strokes,
brain damage and six weeks spent in a coma.
In the following years he relearned how to eat, speak and write, with the support of
his family.
Upon arriving at Darien Lake, according to his sister, Jody, Hackemer was determined
to ride every rollercoaster.
In the afternoon he went on the “Superman-Ride of Steel”.
Jody would later tell a media outlet that, for the minute or so that he’d spent on
the rollercoaster, “he probably felt the happiest and most normal he's felt in three
and a half years”.
Hackemer, a father of two young daughters, was accompanied on the ride by a college-age
nephew.
Tragically, as the rollercoaster reached the 50 mph mark, Hackemer fell off it, sustaining
fatal injuries.
In the aftermath, a rumor circulated that the veteran had been told by a park employee
that he could go on all the rides.
In reality, as recounted by his nephew, no one had challenged whether him going on the
rollercoaster would pose an issue and Hackemer himself never asked.
He wasn’t height checked and the Ride of Steel’s operator failed to notice he was
a double-amputee.
As a result, he was thrown from the ride.
A wrongful-death lawsuit would later be settled for a seven-figure sum that would go towards
his daughters.
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