Rides No Longer in Gurnee

[RandyV]

From what I was told when I worked there, is this..
How the ride worked was that the car was lifted up one tower and a set of brakes stopped it and moved it over to the tower that it came down on. What malfunctioned was the brake at the top of the first tower failed and the ride came back down the lift tower. If this is incorrect, I was misinformed by park management.

Here's the deal on the Gurnee Edge accident -- I followed this extremely closely when it happened since this was my home park. I have tons of local news articles and newscasts on video tape from when this accident happened.

The original ride control programming had one car start up the tower just as the car before it was released down the slope. This helped improve the rides capacity by keeping cars moving all the time. Before the tower ascent, the ride weighed the car at the bottom of the tower so it could properly adjust the braking force once the car went down the slope. In addition, the ride also measued the velocity of the car as it was coming down the slope to further adjust the braking force required to safely stop the car.

It was raining the day of the accident in Gurnee. When the car at the top of the tower was released, the other car started its ascent. However, the computers detected that the car travelling down the slope was going too fast, causing a fault and shutting down the ride immediately. This stopped the car ascending the tower 2/3s of the way up.

When maintenance attempted to reset and restart the ride, the lift chain broke. Partly due to the rain, but mostly due to under-sized anti-rollback brakes on the lift, the car that was in the tower fell back to the platform.

It did not land on another car. The three boys in the car that fell had internal bruising and were in the hospital for a few days.

After the accident, three things were changed: (1) ride programming was modified such that the car in the tower does not begin its ascent up the tower until the car before it has completed its descent. Therefore, if the ride detects a fault simialr to what happened in Gurnee, the car in the tower is just sitting at the bottom of the lift. (2) The anti-rollback brakes in the tower were replaced with units twice as large as those originally spec'd for the ride. (3) The number of anti-rollback brakes was doubled from 12 to 24.

All FreeFalls, to my knowledge, received these upgrades.

I was totally bummed when they removed The Edge from Gurnee. Official statement was that ridership was down and that the public confidence in the ride was shaky. Personally, I think insurance was a factor and/or that the park simply didn't want the black cloud hanging over them. When I was at the park after The Edge had re-opened, the lines were always pretty long.

The Edge was truly one of the only rides in history that really scared my out of my mind when I first rode it. What rush!

[redfishpaw]

I was totally bummed when they removed The Edge from Gurnee. Official statement was that ridership was down and that the public confidence in the ride was shaky. Personally, I think insurance was a factor and/or that the park simply didn't want the black cloud hanging over them.

Nice summary Randy,
When I worked at SFGA in 85 the Edge stood quiet all summer. I remember there was consideration of keeping the ride. The ride was fixed and there was always talk of it reopening soon. I was surprised when it was decided that it should be taken down. Repairing the ride was one thing, repairing the publics trust was another.

[Shockwavegirl]

Wow, public confidence surely isn't the same as it used to be. People got stuck upside down on Demon for HOURS, and that hasn't seemed to make the public distrust that one.

[steven]

A key difference regarding The Demon incident is that the safety systems performed as they should. No one fell out, even though they were upside down. And none of the cars fell off the track, either. Whereas on The Edge, the safety system as it existed at that time, did not prevent a pretty harsh incident that required hospitalization of the riders. That kind of thing often gives rise to urban legends which greatly exaggerate what really happened. That's probably why public confidence in that ride did not fully recover over the following seasons.

Steven

[Shockwavegirl]

Yeah, they all just walked away with serious headaches from all the blood that rushed to their heads while remaining upside-down for a few hours. Try lying on your couch with your head hanging down for a few minutes to see how long it takes before you feel a major headache coming on. Most people passed out after awhile as well. Where as no one actually fell out, the injuries were more severe. Many were hospitalized as well, including a 9 yr old boy with cerebral palsy(his parents were on the news ALOT complaining that he should have been removed sooner because of his illness)The amount of blood that rushed to their heads actually compressed on their brain which may cause; unconsiousness, memory loss, and possibly seizures. Maybe more, but I will have to get back to you on that when I finish nursing school.

Sounds a little more scary to me than internal bruising. But never having experienced either...(not wanting to either).... I couldn't really tell you which one sucked more.

[PGA ROCKS]

At least in Gurnee, no one has experienced fatalities (as far as I know). All of the major incedents: Whizzer, Top Gun (my favorite), and Drop Zone, all involved tragic deaths. I'm not sure what happened on Whizzer exactly. I know that some guy hopped the fence and got hit by a Top Gun train. For Drop Zone, a kid fell off at the top, and I was there the day before it happened. I remember the day because that was the day I rode The Demon for the first time.

[jonrev]

There have been 2 deaths at the Gurnee park. A girl choked on candy on Raging Bull (I think the story changed though) and a worker was hit by a car on Ragin' Cajun.

[WhizzerSFGAm]

^ Nope, wrong.

There were 3 deaths. The on on Raging Bull was due to a heart condition. The third one was someone who had a heart attack in Hurricane Bay.

[twixmix0303]

The heart condition was never official announced as the reason for her death. (Probably because if it was, the family would lose the gum-chewing lawsuit.)

[Shockwavegirl]

The heart condition was officially announced, but it wasn't as big a news story anymore. But the family never intended on sueing the park either, yes it was tragic, yes it was an accident, but in no way was Six Flags responsible for the accident. If she was chewing gum, she was violating a rule that is clearly posted about not eating on rides. But since she died because of an enlarged heart, Six Flags was not responsible for her death as it is clearly posted on the ride that persons with heart conditions should not ride, and if the family didn't know Six Flags surely wouldn't know, therefore they were not legally at fault.

And any defense attorney worth his retainer fee would have the autopsy report and would not let the gum-chewing suit even make it to court. In a wrongful death lawsuit a coroner's report and death certificate would be prime evidence. If she had died from choking on gum the families lawyer would have used it to prove cause of death and point out that the signs do not say Gum...gum is not TECHNICALLY a food, since you don't eat it. But seeing as the cause of death was an enlarged heart, SF's attorneys would have shown that to the judge at the beginning of the settlement hearings long before the lawsuit EVER made it to trial, it would have been snuffed out.

[twixmix0303]

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info!

[zingme]

Back to the Edge accident - I remember that the (Gurnee) accident was a BIG DEAL (much more than the Demon "stuck in the loop" thing that happened a few years back). I remember much public outcry that the ride be taken out.

I'm speaking strictly to what I remember as the media/general public point-of-view, without regard to actual injury.

[redfishpaw]

The Edge was not removed because of public outcry. The accident happened on 5/28/1984 and the ride was removed later in 1985. I worked at the park in 1985 (in Rides) and nobody was really complaining about the Edge then (as it was a whole year later). Everything was positive, the ride was fixed and the park was planning on reopening the ride. Almost every week we thought the ride would reopen. The ride was removed because SF wanted to protect their image, not public outcry.