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As Americans gear up to enjoy this Memorial Day Weekend with sizzling backyard BBQs and sales galore, ranks of revelers will travel to amusement parks all over the country — eager to kick off the unofficial start of summer with a day of outdoor thrills and fun.
But before your family races toward the ever-taller and faster roller coasters or shoots down those waterslides just yet, Brian D. Avery, a University of Florida professor with 35 years of experience in the amusement/attractions/tourism industries, advised that it’s a good idea to brush up on amusement park safety tips before your trip.
Avery told The Post that while theme parks and rides are designed for entertainment, they are still “complex operating environments” that have the potential to be the sites of tragedy, whether through machine malfunction or rider error.
And as coasters soar to higher heights and park visitors are pushed to the limit with increasing G-forces, awareness of risks involved is important for even the most adventurous of thrillseekers.
“Rides combine machinery, speed, height, forces, restraints, human behavior, weather, crowds and operator decisions,” said Avery, who himself has visited over 100 theme parks and ridden “several hundred” roller coasters. “Most visits are safe, and serious injuries are rare, but rare does not mean impossible.”
Indeed, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), over 385 million people safely enjoy the 1.7 billion rides at approximately 400 fixed-site facilities in North America in a typical year.
The chance of being seriously injured on one of these rides is minimal — one in 15.5 million rides taken.
While Avery agreed that the chance of injury is comparatively low, he emphasized that park staff still hold the responsibility to ensure that all rides are always inspected, maintained and operated in accordance with industry best practices — and that guests must make sure they understand basic safety expectations to have the best time possible.
“The goal is not to scare people — the goal is to help them make better decisions,” said Avery. “Read the posted signs; know your own medical limitations; listen to operators; secure loose articles; do not force a child onto a ride they are not ready for; do not ignore height, weight, health, or behavior restrictions.”
“Those rules are not decorations,” he continued. “They are there because someone, somewhere, learned the hard way.”
Below, buckle up for a rundown of some of the most bizarre, sometimes tragic amusement park accidents in recent history — and remember to strap in tight when you board your favorite coaster.
On the Mamba roller coaster at the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City last October, a young girl’s “blood-curdling scream” alerted a Missouri couple that her seatbelt had come undone.
Missouri man Chris Evins initially “assumed it was her first time on the ride,” and the girl, who sat behind his wife, was just scared.
But then she yelled that her seatbelt had unbuckled — after which the pair sprang into action, doing their best to secure the girl through the coaster’s run, which reached speeds of up to 75 miles per hour.
“I looped my arm underneath the lap bar, and I grabbed ahold of her wrist,” Evins, whose status as a season ticket holder enabled him and his wife to anticipate the coaster’s twists and turns, told KCTV5. “My wife was pushing down on her legs.”
The hero couple managed to keep the girl in her seat throughout the ride, but they were separated from the girl during the chaos and never had the chance to speak with her or her family.
Worlds of Fun told KCTV that the ride was closed immediately following the incident and was thoroughly inspected, though it was shut down later in the month.
The couple told the outlet they were just glad the girl was safe.
“You know, they could have had a drastically different outcome,” said Evins.
A tragedy occurred at Universal Studios’ Epic Universe theme park in September 2025, when a 32-year-old man died after suffering from blunt impact injuries on the Stardust Racers attraction in what was eventually ruled an accidental death.
Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, who used a wheelchair due to a prior spinal injury, was riding the steel roller coaster with his girlfriend when he passed out, leaving his head repeatedly slamming into the cart. Zavala was rushed to a hospital, but later died from his injuries.
Police bodycam footage released in March showed the distressing moments following the incident, where one person can be heard saying to officers, “One of those ride carts — it’s just like, blood.”
“He kept hitting his head,” his girlfriend can be heard telling officers in the video. “I tried to hold him so he doesn’t hit his head anymore.”
According to a report from the incident, Zavala suffered “severe facial trauma” and a “significant amount of blood loss,” leaving witnesses “shocked” by the state of his body post-ride.
Zavala’s death was later declared an accident after an investigation determined that staff had properly followed all safety procedures, though the ride later reopened with a new requirement that handicapped individuals must be able to walk on their own to ride the coaster.
In a harrowing incident caught on video, a ride in a Saudi Arabian amusement park collapsed, hurtling dozens of terrified riders to the ground and injuring several.
The accident occurred on the 360 Big Pendulum ride at Green Mountain Park in Taif, near the country’s western coast.
Videos posted to social media captured the terrifying fall of the pendulum, which showed the ride swinging until it cracked with a sickening crunching sound. Twenty-three people were injured in the fall, four of them seriously, but no lives were lost — likely due to the wheel righting itself as it fell and landing relatively flatly, as reported by local media.
Several witnesses described the scene as “chaotic,” and injured riders were treated by the Saudi Red Crescent Authority at the scene.
The Al-Hada regional government later released a statement saying that the governor of Taif, Prince Saud bin Nahar bin Saud Bin Abdulaziz, ordered the park to close for an investigation.
A 28-year-old mother who was told by park workers not to be scared before being pushed down a giant waterslide at a Chinácota, Colombia, theme park died in March after falling 15 feet off the ride, according to reports.
In a haunting video shared to X and reported by Colombian news outlet El Tiempo, Yuris Cristel Camilla Garcia Manrique, mother to a 4-year-old girl, asked whether someone would be at the bottom of the Entre Flores ride “to meet (her)” in Spanish, as she prepares herself to go down while sitting in a rubber ring.
The operator replies, “Yes, don’t be afraid,” before sending Manrique down the slide.
The mother is soon flung off the ride and disappears from the shot. Someone can be heard asking, “Did she fall off?” in the clip.
According to The Sun, she fell 15 feet and was left with severe brain, abdomen and chest injuries. She died en route to the hospital.
The local mayor’s office has initiated an investigation into the tragedy.
Opening day of Ohio’s Cedar Point Siren’s Curse coaster — touted as “North America’s tallest, longest and fastest coaster” — turned out to be a hair-raising experience, when a more-than-momentary malfunction left riders stranded upside down for almost 10 minutes.
During the coaster’s grand debut, the Akron Beacon Journal reported that a power outage brought the ride to a halt on its first day of operation.
The ride, which was subsequently shut down from approximately 8 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. after the 10-minute delay, features a 160-foot lift hill and 2,966 feet of track.
It also hits speeds of 58 miles per hour over the intended two-minute run.
The in-air guests did not have to evacuate their seats on the ride — which subsequently faced several other stoppages in the span of about a month — and eventually exited the ride safely after it continued its run.
Cedar Point spokesperson Tony Clark told the outlet that the coaster’s safety system “performed as designed,” and that the outage took place after a nearby motorist slammed into a utility pole. No one was hurt during the incident.
