Woman Dies After Going on a Ride at Disney's Epcot

[Queenie]

Woman Dies After Going on a Ride at Disney's Epcot
AP
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (April 13) - A second person in less than a year died Wednesday after going on a ride at Walt Disney World so intense that it has motion sickness bags.


The 49-year-old woman became ill after riding "Mission: Space" on Tuesday. She was taken to a hospital, where she died, park spokeswoman Kim Prunty said in a statement. No more information on the woman would be released Wednesday night, she said.


The ride has been closed, and a state agency will monitor an inspection, Prunty said.


Disney officials told state inspectors Wednesday that the woman felt dizzy and nauseated after the ride and may have had high blood pressure and other health problems, said Terence McElroy, a spokesman for the department that oversees the ride-monitoring agency.


The $100 million ride, one of Disney World's most popular, was closed in June after the death of a 4-year-old boy who passed out while aboard. An autopsy concluded he died of a heart condition that a medical examiner said can cause sudden death in stressful situations.


The ride reopened after company engineers concluded it was operating normally.


"Mission: Space" spins riders in a centrifuge that subjects them to twice the normal force of gravity. Some riders have been taken to the hospital with chest pain.

[Bob]

Is this more of a person not knowing or understanding their personal limits or is the ride really pushing this to the edge?

[Queenie]

I think it's a little of both.

[Cutesunshine]

I think if it's hospitalized and hurt more than 5 people closing the ride should be a consideration. Often people don't know of medical conditions, and being on a ride in disney and croaking isnt the way I'd wanna find out about it.

[Bob]

5 people per incident or throughtout a year?

There is and always will be this amount uncertainty when a human is involved. Nothing can be perfect if a human is involved so do we assume that risk when waking up in the morning or do we assume that risk once we enter the park? I can understand both sides of it, however I feel that these are one of those things that just happens. Yes you can prevent it by closing the ride down, but soon another one will open just like it. Based on the info provided, this is an accidental death so treat it like one. It happened, yeah it really really sucks and I would have a different point of view if I was in the family's shoes, but it did. Move on.
The other half is people taking responsibility for their actions whether they know the outcome or not. I have trouble with the concept of someone suing the park because something accidental happened. Well what do you expect when your basically put in a centrifuge. Or sent 400 feet in the air hanging by steel. You take that risk and that's the joy of the rides. But the people who ride them don't want to take responsibility for how they will react to the rides. I'll get on it and if I get sick I'll sue ... is the basic philosophy. The park should be able to sue the rider for making them close it down and lose profits. I bet some people would think twice about the ride before that. Oh yeah I hate amusement parks in case you couldn't tell.

Sorry, about the ranting. I'm just sick and tired of the bullshit, everywhere. Not that this is anything, I'm making it into something, but this is the path usually taken when something like this occurs.

[Queenie]

People are sue happy. It's sad.

[sws4420]

I've worked at an amusement park, there's plenty of warnings stating that you shouldn't ride a ride if you are pregnant, too short, have broken bones, have seizures, heart conditions, etc. Do these people expect everyone to submit themselves to a full health screening before going on a ride?

And people are sue happy. If you break down the price of admission to a park like Great Escape, it's like 10% admission, and the rest is to cover insurance for the park. It's retarded.