"The lawsuit alleges that no weight restrictions were posted at the ticket counter" — were weight restrictions posted anywhere else? Perhaps he bought the ticket, then saw a sign. And yet, even if he did and chose to ignore it, the ride operators need something better than an honor code about weight.
[T]he Orlando Free Fall... drops nearly 400 feet at speeds of more than 75 mph and is advertised as the “world’s tallest free-standing drop tower.”
It's awkward to enforce weight limits though. See "TikTok star Remi Bader says she was mocked for her weight after being turned away from horse ranch" (NBC News).
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67 comments:
It's awkward to enforce weight limits though.
Yet the highly regulated airline industry does ...
Some US air carriers have announced policies that apply to what they discreetly call "passengers of size" or "passengers requiring extra space," — in other words, overweight airline passengers. The terminology is polite, but the airlines' policies are straightforward. If, when you sit down in your airplane seat, you need a seat belt extender or you can't lower both armrests, you may be asked to pay for a second seat unless extra space is available somewhere on the aircraft.
And searching for accommodations and limits at Disney parks returns many references and links to Disney's inclusive weight and size policies.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/flight-ticketing-for-larger-passengers-2972606
Do airlines deny boarding to overly large passengers if the plane is full?
I'm with Ann in hoping this lawsuit will succeed.
Wow... Take a ticket to experience a sensation of falling, turns into the real thing. Sad, so sad.
Gravity. It’s the law.
Is the lawsuit against the maker of the ride, the operator of the ride, or both? Was anyone else injured, e.g. fellow passenger?
I think the horse ranch was protecting Bader, not their horses. Arnold Schwarzenegger rode horses in a number of movie roles, weighs just as much as Remi Bader and the horses did just fine.
Seems like they would have a poor case against the maker of the ride.
I'm over six feet all. I'd like to lose some weight. To match this kid's bulk, though, I'd need to gain over a hundred pounds. I eat all I want. Maybe just a tad less than that.
I got out of OCS at 205 and averaged, against a mild effort not to, to gain about a pound a year.
Does the combined IQ of this poor kid's parents get into the double digits?
How much other trouble has he had getting through life? Can he actually get through the door of the school bus? Fit in a school desk or chair?
How much furniture had he broken by sitting on it and was he injured?
Some terrible thing was going to happen to him.
Death Fat Horses Law
Sounds suspiciously like a password.
Enforcing weight restrictions would be such an awful, thankless job for the typical teenager that amusement parks hire to operate rides. I'd tell my children to run, run far away from any job that involved operating a thrill ride. Tragedies occur regularly for a variety of reasons, and minimum wage isn't worth the repercussions should one occur on your ride.
That was one obese kid. Maybe he carried it well. Maybe the operators had never seen a person that big before. I never have.
Adult male 6’1” at 387 pounds is a BMI of 51.1.
More than double the “normal/healthy” BMI of 25.
Hard for me to visualize how this poor guy could even move himself around, stand up, climb stairs. The load on his heart and joints must have been terrible. …As the saying goes, he was digging his grave with his spoon.
The people operating those rides tend to be young themselves. How can they handle every single person who approaches the ride? There must be some kind of protocol, but it would have to be something better than what was used in this case. Anyway, if you're going to tell some people they can't get on the ride, some of these people are going to protest, behave badly, or maybe sue the park for fat-shaming them.
There's no scale available on a carnival ride for weighing prospective passengers. If he fit in the safety restraints, then I think negligence is a tougher argument. If they let him ride without being buckled in (and there was dialogue on the original video suggesting that they did), then I think the family easily wins the case.
Kings Island, near Cincinnati, doesn't check for weight but for size to assure rider can be held properly by safety restraints. Depending on the ride they have min and/or max heights and some have a trial seat to assure you can fit properly and close safety restraint.
Inevitable.
383 lb 14 year old.
my word.
14 years old. 383 pounds.
And not a single word of criticism about the parental abuse of this child. SMH.
Terrible story. Terrible child abuse by his parents.
Sad that the parents let, made?, this kid grow huge. Perhaps if fat shaming were allowed the boy would have put the brakes on his gluttony. They would have sued the park if he wasn’t allowed on the ride being so chubby and all.
I expect Schwarzenegger was riding an especially large and trained horse. We have horses on the beach around here and the weight limit is 250. I do not know how they would enforce, honor system I expect.
But they don’t get nearly the dollars for their ride as the owner of Arnold’s horse did. They are riding folks for a long time and are pretty old.
I think the restraints should hold whatever the restraints can restrain. Or as you say put out a scale out there and fat people will have to just weight themselves in front of the world before getting on. Problem probably solved.
dbp, their is a common rule that horses carry 20% or less of their own weight so the average 1200-pound horse can safely take a rider up to 240 pounds. Many riding ranches will keep a few larger horses for bigger people, but there is a limit. Like many bodybuilders and actors Arnold is less than average height. I would be surprised if he was in excess of 240, and if he was the wrangler would supply a large enough horse.
Well, the CDC made no effort to emphasize the impact of obesity on COVID - why should usement parks care?
I saw the video of this. It was pretty horrible to watch. Not much to say except that on the ground, at the point of sale, or the entrance to the ride, the person in position to make that decision could not make it. And it seems a no-brainer from our vantage point. But I've not seen who else has ridden that thing over the years. I'm sure Disney will bring in photos or videos of other large people successfully managing their rides. Or...they'll just pay up- bigly- before the trial.
One odd thought that crossed my mind. There were probably major college football programs that had already contacted that kid's parents and the kid himself. While most of us would look at his age & size and think: what the hell is going on with his parents? Most college football coaches look at him and think, "Hey...future lineman. Get his name."
I guess I just outed myself as having that same mentality. Jeebus.
Imagine being a teen, 5'2" and 100 pounds, and trying to deny this kid a place on the ride.
Maybe the people running the ride are full-grown and large adults. They'd have a better chance.
File under "Don't be mean"
I'll bet the ride posts the rules with the height requirements and weight limits - but is there a weight scale at the entrance? No way. That's "mean".
It is interesting how people want to go on rides even when the safety measures say you aren't allowed. You see people standing on their toes or hunching down to meet the height requirements. Lying about their weight. I've seen the ride operators check, but people do try to cheat, and for some reason the fact that it isn't safe for them to ride is not enough of a deterrent to keep them from trying to get on.
One other aspect- I saw a ride operator (I think it was Cedar Point) tell a man he was too large, and the man berated the operator and called him racist. He went on and on. That's got to be quite daunting for the operator.
People want to be scared to death without the risk of death. I wonder if this incident has made that particular ride more popular?
A lot (most?) of you are missing some key information on this case.
First of all, two seats had recently - and without the knowledge or consent of the manufacturer - had their restraints modified, which would allow the locking mechanism’s sensor to register as “locked” with a much greater harness opening than had been designed and approved by the manufacturer. It has yet to come out who did the modification or who made the call (my theory is a maintenance worker would be the only one with the know-how, but was probably convinced somehow by some idiot upper/middle management person who either wanted to stop getting yelled at for turning away larger people, or wanted to be more “inclusive” by allowing heavier people on).
Anyway, even with the additional space between the harness and the seat, that wouldn’t be an issue in and of itself - if the ride didn’t also tilt 30 degrees at the top for the ride down. There was essentially nothing holding that poor kid in once the seat tilted.
Now, as for the ride operator… I live in the Orlando area and I worked at Disney for 11 years. I can tell you right now that that kid was trained to check to make sure that the harness was locked by a physical tug (he did that) and to check that the light on the console was on indicating that it was locked (which, again, it did). Those two criteria are SUPPOSE to be fail safe. There’s no, “physically check the harness, check the light indicator is on, then follow your heart to make the best guess as to whether or not the rider is secured enough.” No, because the black and white indicators are supposed to take out gut instinct and subjectivity.
The correct harness gap probably automatically weeded out anyone over the weight limit. Once someone ignorantly modified the harness, it allowed people above the weight limit on. I’m guessing this modification had been done within a day or two of the accident, because once it was adjusted, it was guaranteed to kill the first person this kid’s size who rode. Regardless, there was no scale provided for the ride ops to weigh the patrons because, until the modification, there was no need. And whichever higher-up had the idiocy to make a major modification to the ONE safety fail safe on the ride without permission from the manufacturer clearly didn’t have the brain cells to bring out a scale to make sure no one too heavy boarded. But of course, that would have made the modifications pointless because anyone who needed the bigger seats would have been denied boarding anyway.
Basically, this is very much insane negligence, and someone is definitely going to get in huge legal trouble over this. But it won’t be the ride operator, who was just following the protocol he had been trained to do, and it won’t be the manufacturer who didn’t know of the modification.
If the weight limit is clearly posted, along with the reasons for it, then any self-regarding person who knew his own weight would comply with the rule voluntarily, out of self-interest. No need for "fat shaming" action by some kid getting min wage for a summer job.
Of course, it's hard to be self-regarding, or self-aware, and get to that level of obesity. But it's also hard to see why the company should be liable for someone's failure to know the condition of his own body.
Hard to see how the manufacturer was to blame. Natatomic makes some great points.
No one can make a one-size fits all safe ride. You can't design your product for 400 lbs people. This kid must have been 150 lbs overweight. Insane for a 14 y.o. The race isn't mentioned but I assume he's black. Which is probably another reason he was let on the ride.
Ban amusement park rides. No one needs those crazy rides. People should be doing something meaningful with their time like working for social justice and battling climate change. It's time we all grew up.
If it saves one life...
Disney's solution ...
The best option to see if you are a good fit for a Disney ride is to check one of the test seats. These are available on most of the rides when size may be a problem.
The test seats are conveniently located outside of the ride itself.
expeditionhopper.com
My niece worked at an Orlando theme park and routinely ejected people from rides (and sometimes the park) for various reasons. Often because they were rude or abusive.
It didn't seem to bother her. In fact, she brags about it.
She's kind of a bitch, though.
Wrongful death? Allowing your 14-year-old to reach a weight of nearly 400 pounds strikes me as a preponderance of the evidence.
For crying out loud, can't we just say fat?
Years ago, I was visiting a Chicago Rush Street bar with my wife and some old fraternity brothers. It was ridiculously crowded, but we eventually found a corner that was tolerable. From the corner my wife and I observed a weighty gent having a difficult time trying to make his way through the crowd to the men's room. Frustrated, he finally bellowed (yes, that is the right word), "Fat-ass, coming through -- fat-ass coming through --part the way!" It worked perfectly of course. My wife and I both laughed and said, "Great American."
I then turned to my frat brother behind me and told him what we had just seen. Unfortunately, a young lady was passing by just as I repeated the magic words and immediately assumed I was insulting her. Try as I might, I could not convince her otherwise. Of course, my frat brothers were of no help, telling her I had been insulting fat people since our college days, though at least my Big Brother tried to rescue me by assuring her that I was talking about "another fat-ass."
I’m fairly certain that death is a preferable outcome to being fat shamed.
The lifelong pain that young man would have suffered as a result of amusement ride denial would have been far worse than what was likely less than a moment of ecstasy followed by sudden death.
The parents in the wake of an almost certain legal and financial victory can build their own plus sized amusement park, and deny admission to those who fail to meet the required minimum weight threshold.
Do airlines deny boarding to overly large passengers if the plane is full?
Wells Fargo denied stagecoach seats to large people. That's why they say "there's no west for the reary"
We take guests on long horseback rides. Our limit is 250lbs. Many people lie about their weight. Another guest ranch near us is so fed up with the lying that they have started making everyone step on a scale when they arrive. I am looking forward to seeing how that works out for them.
People are getting a lot bigger overall, not just heavier, but taller and wider. It's a real challenge for us in this business.
We have to match people to horses based on their skill and size. The horses are kept in pastures all over the state. All of this juggling has to happen before the person arrives at our ranch.
Most of our horses are draft-crosses, which are bred for their large size and their strength. It is getting more and more difficult and expensive to find them.
Another problem that occurs is that people will be riding all day for several days on our horses. These are week-long trips through the mountains. If we put a lot of weight on a horse, they become unusable for extended periods of time, sometimes the entire season. That means we have to keep many more horses than we can afford to pasture and feed. And because of their size, everything about them is more expensive (more food, larger shoes, medicine doses, bigger trailers, etc.).
Imagine enforcing a weight limit in this instance- sued anyway. This is truly damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Assuming the parents file a wrongful death suit, the damages are computed for:
Funeral and burial expenses - probably unduly significant in this case
Value of household services lost - probably a net negative to this household
Loss of companionship - unknown
Loss of gifts and benefits accruing to the child - probably negligible
Loss of financial support from the child - maybe a net loss here, too
Negligent infliction of emotional distress - this may be the big ticket item
===============================================================================
This all sounds very callous, and it is. But it's the way such things work, I'm told.
If I recall correctly, a long time ago we took a float plane ride over the mountains in Alaska.
We filled out the usual disclaimer form waiving responsibility in case of injury or death.
One question was about our weight, as the planes are small and the pilot needed to balance the load.
Before we boarded we stepped on a scale just to be sure...
'Yet the highly regulated airline industry does ...'
They 'enforce' it by charging extra for overweight luggage.
It's a money-maker.
But some people really should be charged for 2 seats.
I once sat in the middle seat between two women on a flight to Denver.
Both needed the seatbelt extender. Their trays were unusable.
As always, the flight was very turbulent over the Rockies.
The only good thing was, I felt like an egg in a very snug carton, enveloped in fat from both sides.
I probably had the best chance of survival in case of a crash : )
In my 20 years a Captain for a US major airline, I had 2 occasions too have 'large people" removed:
1. A very over weight man (at least 400 lbs.), who wanted to have a 3 seat row to himself (only bought 1 ticket) on an overbooked flight. And refused to use a seatbelt extender because it was "uncomfortable".
2. Two very large women, traveling together, who took up the entirety of a 3 seat row on a fully booked flight. When the person who had purchased the 3rd seat showed up, I had to have one of them removed when they declined to make room for the 3rd passenger in the row.
In both instances it was size, rather than weight, which was the problem.
Bob Boyd said...
Ban amusement park rides. No one needs those crazy rides. People should be doing something meaningful with their time like working for social justice and battling climate change. It's time we all grew up.
If it saves one life...
************
Exactly! And I'd betcha that people on those senseless rides are using all thirty brands of wasteful deodorants smelly Bernie Sanders rails about.
(And don't get Bernie started on there being too many brands of toilet paper, as he is happy to cut up newsprint and use that---when he thinks of it.)
BobD: Let me guess, you were the ideal pilot weighing exactly 170-pounds during your career
s'opihjerdt said...
Do airlines deny boarding to overly large passengers if the plane is full?
Wells Fargo denied stagecoach seats to large people. That's why they say "there's no west for the reary"
*************
baddabish
That's why they say "there's no west for the reary"
I'll try to remember that. (Laugh)
Howard said...
BobD: Let me guess, you were the ideal pilot weighing exactly 170-pounds during your career
************
Howard, you doofuss: where did you get that bogus stat?
Pilots ARE required by their employers to maintain a maximum BMI of 35---as well as to pass numerous other health criteria at least annually. Passengers don't.
In any case, we're talking here about obese passengers taking up seats they didn't pay for, or crowding out people sitting next to them.
Obviously, a pilot can't just order a seat that fits him. If he's too fat to get into that seat, he ain't flyin'.
Howard: 159 actually
Natatonic seems to have hit on the key detail; an investigation showed this modification. There were early articles noting both that his harness did not appear to be down all the way, and that it remained in position after the accident. This modification would explain both.
There is dialogue in the video of the accident where the ride operators confirm that a required safety indicator light for his seat had come on, clearing him to ride.
'Ban amusement park rides.'
Ban assault rides.
And nobody needs a drop of more than 200 feet.
pious agnostic said...
My niece worked at an Orlando theme park and routinely ejected people from rides
--
Unfortunate wording in this context
Regardless of the weight limit, anyone who designs safety equipment knows that you need the failuren point to be at least double if not much more than the rated failure point. That ride is not safe enough for me to trust if it fails with an extra 100lbs of force.
Do you want your 2T weight limit bridges to collapse if 2.2T go over it? No, neither do I.
Maybe he shouldn't have been in the ride, certainly he should have made weightloss and fitness a priority. But there's no way a life threatening ride should eject a rider at 300+lbs.
The wife and I looked into going to a horse ranch several years ago. The ranch had a 250 lb cut-off and I was over that (I think I was around 265-270 at the time). I understood the rationale for the limit and I brought my weight to their attention in advance. Because of my height (6'5"), they never even thought that I was above the limit. They gave me the biggest horse they had and we had a great time. It seems they were concerned about the person's weight distribution more than the actual total weight. Because of my height, the weight was better distributed.
The parents of a kid who weighed nearly 400 pounds should be prosecuted for child abuse. At one time, I did some weight reduction surgery. The youngest patient was 15 and was referred by a pediatric endocrinologist. She weighed about 250 and lost 100 pounds after the surgery. Her father was a chef at a popular Mexican restaurant in San Juan Capistrano. He sent me some nice Christmas Tamales.
"Like many bodybuilders and actors Arnold is less than average height."
Arnold Schwarzenegger is about six foot two. I know this for a fact because I once shook his hand at an event.
While we're fact-checking, yes the 383-pound kid who fell from the ride was black.
The decedent is from the metro area where I live, and this story was covered a large number of days immediately after by the local TV station whose news I watch for the weather forecasts (and, I'm sure, by the other TV stations).
As some have speculated, the decedent - and IIRC his family - had dreams of playing college football and then on to pro football. That helps to explain his size.
Also, and of course, an attorney (with associated attorneys by his side) quickly became the spokesmen for the family, which turned the subsequent news stories into an attorney laying the groundwork and stating the bases (couched in legal wording and conclusions) for the legal theories, claims, and damage calculations for the lawsuit that eventually got filed.
I must say because of that, I tuned the story out after the first couple of TV reports. I intensely dislike the symbiotic relationship between a family that's suffered a tragedy with lawsuit to follow, and the media looking for a juicy story with a local hook.
The kid was fatshamed every day. The teacher who says, with a worried expression, "I'll get you a different chair." The kid on the school bus who looks at a seat built for two and passes it up as there is no room.
Clothes the kid would like to wear which aren't available anywhere near his size.
'Arnold Schwarzenegger is about six foot two. I know this for a fact because I once shook his hand at an event.'
Did you see the lifts in his shoes?
: )
"Because of my height, the weight was better distributed."
I don't think you understand physics.
Curious George: maybe he's got a super wide butt that required a special super wide saddle.
Richard Aubrey said...
The kid was fatshamed every day. The teacher who says, with a worried expression, "I'll get you a different chair." The kid on the school bus who looks at a seat built for two and passes it up as there is no room.
Clothes the kid would like to wear which aren't available anywhere near his size.
*********************
"Can I get the "Tough Shit!!" Chorus to give me a "Tough shit!!"??
TOUGH SHIT!!!
The freakin' world doesn't owe the fat kid chairs, seats, or clothes that fit him.
disonMan said...
Imagine being a teen, 5'2" and 100 pounds, and trying to deny this kid a place on the ride.
Maybe the people running the ride are full-grown and large adults. They'd have a better chance.
**********
My 10-ish son was twice denied amusement park rides because according to the yardstick next to their entrances he was too short.
If a smallish operator has to enforce the rules against a hostile customer, he can always call the cops.
(Cops are always on hand at carnivals and amusement parks, as they are allowed "All You Can Eat" at the Fried Dough concessions.)
"Like many bodybuilders and actors Arnold is less than average height."
Arnold Schwarzenegger is about six foot two. I know this for a fact because I once shook his hand at an event.
Wow I saw him with Sly Stallone who is not 6' 2" and they looked the same size but you are correct. Or Google agrees with you at least, and they list his weight as 235. So he can ride an average horse too.
effinay
Missed the point. One more fat-shaming at the thrill ride wouldn't have ruined him if a couple of years of daily fat shaming hadn't yet.
I searched the internet to verify what I was 99% sure was true. The kid was black.
The good news? The poor kid operating the ride won't be accused of racism for not letting the dead kid ride the ride.
I like water parks. They're fun. There's a local one our family went to - once. My daughter, 5 or 6 at the time, was refused entry to a lot of ride because she wasn't tall enough, including the two person rides when I was with her. The park has a large proportion of black attendees because of it's location. All the little black kids as tall or shorter than her were on all the rides, and the 100% white lifeguards ignored them. Better to let little black kids die than risk their entire life on enforcing rules on them. And yes, my daughter noticed that- another reason we never went back. Do you answer honestly when your kid asks "Why are they allowed on the ride and I'm not?" In our family, the answer is yes. ALL white and Asian kids notice that blacks are treated differently as soon as they're old enough to notice such things. It's why younger people today are far more likely to exhibit racist behavior than adults my age- now 67. They don't talk racist- but they're far more likely to act it. To actually say racist things is also a way to destroy their lives. To even point out a truth- blacks are treated more leniently at every stage of life is a way to destroy their lives. If your name is Laqueesha or Javonne, and no one's looking, your job application goes in the trash. Invisible actions designed to reduce interactions with blacks.
But your honor, according to Galileo et al the rate of descent is independent of mass so the plaintiff was not subjected to higher impact velocity due to exceeding the weight limit! Objection! Since kinetic energy is 1/2 Mass times Velocity squared my client was in fact subjected to trauma greater than that of normal weight customers even if only at the first order of magnitude! Objection sustained.
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