Accident at Alton Towers

[Dan1989]

So I was on Facebook and stumbled across this, http://www.itv.com/news/2015-06-05/deta ... ers-crash/

This is what part of it said,

The Smiler ride sparked the recent park closure and new safety protocols after a crash on Tuesday left 16 people injured, four seriously.

The Smiler opened in May 2013. The ride reaches a top speed of 85mph and height of 30 metres.

Maybe I'm being a bit to much of a geek but I'm pretty sure the Smiler max's out around 55mph doesn't it?

 

[Martyn B]

Several million pounds for a couple of broken legs seems a bit generous. Unless that's a total figure for all injured?

 

[furie]

To give some context. My cousin lost a leg, above the knee, in an industrial accident at work. He had a payout of around £1.5 million from the courts after it was proven to be his employer's fault.

I have no doubt that in this case payout will be higher, but it will be based on how life changing and how long the suffering will be endured. So a broken leg that will heal in six months will be worth less than broken legs that will never recover on a 50 year old which will be worth less than the same injury on a 15 year old.

But, you get the ball park idea...

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

 

[mcg0ughchris]

Several million pounds for a couple of broken legs seems a bit generous. Unless that's a total figure for all injured?

I don't think it's just Broken legs though. By the sounds of the article Joe may have trouble walking for the considerable future and he's also lost all use of a finger. He's already had operations and **** loads of metal rods and pins put into his knees just to hold them together. It'll be a large payout given his age.

Also by the sounds of it he's came out of the accident in the best condition. Obviously we know about Leah and she'll probably be getting millions, plus all medical expenses and the best prosthetics you can buy.

Remember that these are just kids, reading the article I think Joe came across quite well for an 18 year old that's just been through this. Obviously it's easy sitting here and nitpicking details but if I was in his shoes I'd be furious. He's done well, and Merlin will gave to pay out handsomely. There's a lot of opportunities been lost for these 4 in the process.

 

[Gilly]

All through this I have wondered why no member of the GP called the emergency services, instead of filming. I've seen loads of statements from people watching saying they could see blood. Surely you would ring 999 and then alert park staff/ride ops.
I just can't believe someone would film it rather than call 999 if they could see people injured. Morons.

 

[Slayed]

The thing about the Hydro accident is that it wouldn't have happened had staff checked the restraints.

True. The thing about the Smiler incident is that it likely wouldn't have happened if any of the ops/engineers had spotted the stalled train.

We've not seen the investigation results for this yet (and I suspect that it will come out in public, the press will be sniffing for something scandalous to splash), but human error is likely to feature like it did for Hydro.

My original point was just that serious incidents like this are rare, which is why one of the papers decided to drag Hydro back up again.

 

[Rankle07]

All through this I have wondered why no member of the GP called the emergency services, instead of filming. I've seen loads of statements from people watching saying they could see blood. Surely you would ring 999 and then alert park staff/ride ops.
I just can't believe someone would film it rather than call 999 if they could see people injured. Morons.

Due to the age that we live in maybe? In a time where see blood and violence all over the news and in most films and computer games, seeing blood may not bring that shock factor as much as it used to.

Also some people may look for those few minutes of 'e-fame' and being the first to post proper footage of a crash rather than thinking about how badly injured the people involved actually are. You just need to look on YouTube to see the amount of 'Fail Compilation' videos to realise that seeing people getting hurt and seeing blood doesn't really bother people nowadays.

Sad but i feel is true.

 

[furie]

All through this I have wondered why no member of the GP called the emergency services, instead of filming. I've seen loads of statements from people watching saying they could see blood. Surely you would ring 999 and then alert park staff/ride ops.
I just can't believe someone would film it rather than call 999 if they could see people injured. Morons.

Due to the age that we live in maybe? In a time where see blood and violence all over the news and in most films and computer games, seeing blood may not bring that shock factor as much as it used to.

Also some people may look for those few minutes of 'e-fame' and being the first to post proper footage of a crash rather than thinking about how badly injured the people involved actually are. You just need to look on YouTube to see the amount of 'Fail Compilation' videos to realise that seeing people getting hurt and seeing blood doesn't really bother people nowadays.

Sad but i feel is true.

Nope, it's a well known phenomenon. When confronted with the extreme, people go into "somebody else will deal with it" mode automatically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

I saw it in France about 20 years ago. At a reenactment battle, a cannon went off prematurely when the rod was being used to stuff the wadding in. It shattered the rod, blew off the gunners hand and a piece of the wooden shrapnel hit a member of the audience in the face.

There were several hundred people there, but apart from the first aiders who rushed over, nobody else did anything. I saw quickly that it was serious and yelled (in French) into the crowd for somebody to call an ambulance, but nobody moved or even really responded. Everyone just stood around.

Eventually one of the first aiders had to yell at somebody local to go and call for one. People just stood around. It's quite scary actually...

So yeah, it's not surprising at all - even "in this day and age"...

 

[spicy]

^That's interesting I've never heard of the bystander effect before. I guess we would all like to think that we would act and help out in some way but you never truly really know how you are going to react until you are put into a situation like that.

I'm not defending the people that stood and filmed and didn't call the emergency services, however I think that you are a lot more likely to assume that everything will be dealt with and under control with safety protocols in place etc at a theme park rather than an accident randomly happening elsewhere. Another reason why people stood and watched rather than acted.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

The thing about the Hydro accident is that it wouldn't have happened had staff checked the restraints.

True. The thing about the Smiler incident is that it likely wouldn't have happened if any of the ops/engineers had spotted the stalled train.

We've not seen the investigation results for this yet (and I suspect that it will come out in public, the press will be sniffing for something scandalous to splash), but human error is likely to feature like it did for Hydro.

My original point was just that serious incidents like this are rare, which is why one of the papers decided to drag Hydro back up again.

But there must be another layer here, where no single person can be blamed. At least 2 people have failed to do what they are supposed to IF this is human error and not technical and there is likely an explanation as to why - the Hydro accident was one layer of negligence. The restraint must have been "closed" as far as the ride system was aware, but reports state that staff had been failing to check restraints continually. This wasn't a freak case of an attendant missing one bar when distracted, it was well practised negligence. Since the Hydro accident, but before a new company took over the park, I witnessed staff not checking bars at Megafobia. Its the "the computer says its locked" attitude most German parks employ, that fails to understand that people are dumb and might be improperly sat or whatever. Merlin are particularly over the top about restraint checking, as are Hershey Park, both employing double checks on some rides. And we can almost certainly assume they have procedures to stop what happened the other week from happening, too. Multiple procedures. Now there will be even more.

 

[Slayed]

^Sorry Joey, I'm probably being dense but I don't understand the relevance. I was merely saying why I thought a paper published a new story last week on the Hydro incident.

 

[Martyn B]

So Xsector has reopened today, and all signage for The Smiler has been removed.

I don't get what they think they're achieving by doing this...

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

So Xsector has reopened today, and all signage for The Smiler has been removed.

I don't get what they think they're achieving by doing this...

Out of sight, out of mind...

Makes sense really, even if the giant mound of track is still there obvs...

 

[ems991]

Have any of the other multi car coasters reopened yet?

 

[Martyn B]

^ Apparently so.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

^Sorry Joey, I'm probably being dense but I don't understand the relevance. I was merely saying why I thought a paper published a new story last week on the Hydro incident.

Just trying to reiterate to randomers who may land themselves on our forums Googling this whole thing just how unusual and how much of a freak accident the Smiler incident is. The majority of theme park accidents, which are few and far between, harm staff by their own wrongdoing. And where others occur, they are pretty straightforward. This is clearly a multi-layered string of issues that coincidentally mount up to something of significance.

 

[Rankle07]

Nope, it's a well known phenomenon. When confronted with the extreme, people go into "somebody else will deal with it" mode automatically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

I saw it in France about 20 years ago. At a reenactment battle, a cannon went off prematurely when the rod was being used to stuff the wadding in. It shattered the rod, blew off the gunners hand and a piece of the wooden shrapnel hit a member of the audience in the face.

There were several hundred people there, but apart from the first aiders who rushed over, nobody else did anything. I saw quickly that it was serious and yelled (in French) into the crowd for somebody to call an ambulance, but nobody moved or even really responded. Everyone just stood around.

Eventually one of the first aiders had to yell at somebody local to go and call for one. People just stood around. It's quite scary actually...

So yeah, it's not surprising at all - even "in this day and age"...

I stand corrected :lol: .

It says on the wiki page 'the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.', Is this because bystanders are more likely to think that some one else is more 'qualified' to deal with the situation than they are?

My reaction if i was to witness the AT crash would most likely be to do nothing. I wouldn't pull my phone out and record someone screaming for the ride to stop and I also wouldn't call an ambulance. In fact i would be a classic case of what Furie posted.

 

[ems991]

Alton Towers website implies that Sonic has reopened

Chessingtons website shows Rattlesnake as still being closed as well as SAW is still unavailable.

 

[mouse]

Interview with Vicky Balch, apparently her lawyers said she was still battling to save her leg.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... -would-die
Must've been an absolutely horrible experience for the riders.

 

[Smithy]

Their lawyers are advising them very well here. It's no co-incidence that we've had interviews with those involved come out every couple of days to keep the story fresh.