It's pretty sad, but the first thing to come to mind when I read this was a pretty mean snarky comment, and then it hit me, this is fucking terrible, she lost both of her feet.

Agreed, KoP. The strange thing is the story is written as if it's a News of the Weird story almost -- there's not much sympathy or even much background on the victim, beyond what the slackjawed yokel had to say.

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Gah!! Once was bad enough; the whole thing is just so awful .

But does the story include a pink bunny? Or a hillside?

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Ha ha!! I beat you, BP! I win the internets!

MGL beat me to it!! (At least we used different pics... hehe)

It IS an awful story, though... that poor girl.

This is a sickening story.

As one who absolutely loves rides and amusements, I have thought about this stuff a lot. Accidents are rare, to be sure, but they are not at all uncommon. This site tracks them and is continually updated.

Despite the frequency of problems, there is a public mentality that seems to find that grievous or fatal amusement park injuries are acceptable risks. If you click on the news link below about "amusement park inspections," you'll find that not all states mandate any kind of ride inspection. Hiring and training standards in parks aren't the hottest. What I think is the worst of it is that parks lobby agressively not to be regulated, and there is no federally mandated requirement for any systematic reporting of equipment failure, injury, or death in this industry. And the professional association of amusement park owners makes no bones about it: "A savvy business owner knows he cannot afford to be a political spectator." Please, no licensing! No inspections! No reporting! No statistical analysis! Thanks, gov!

Like I said, I love love love rides, but I don't love dishonest business management and poor standards.

Mythbusters did an episode a while back on whether a snapped cable could cut a man in half. They concluded it could not. I have to say, though, that if the cable was moving with sufficient velocity to sever both her feet, it likely would have made it most, if not all, of the way through her midsection. *shudders*

I was just at Busch Gardens Wednesday. *shudders again*

Whoops, I forgot linky.

RideAccidents.com

Could they be reattached? It seems, these days, most amputations can be reattached, with at least partial function.

I could not bring myself to read this whole article.

Doh! Sorry guys.

More on safety

"Accidents are rare, to be sure, but they are not at all uncommon."

...

I'd like to see that Venn diagram.

OK, maybe that was badly phrased. What I mean is that though the incidence of accidents per rider use is low (one foot-severing to probably several hundred thousand rider uses, leading people to think 'it's not likely to happen to me'), ride accidents are not really rare from the point of view of an industry-wide analysis.

I need to know: What was the deal with that photo? It made no sense. It didn't have a caption. It was like abstract art. No, really, what was up with the photo???

The news report in the video on that site indicates she was rushed to the hospital for re-attachment surgery, but didn't have any further updates as to her condition. I'm hoping for a happy ending. *crosses fingers*

brina: I too was baffled by the photo. I think it's a really poor shot of the snapped cable on the ride.

About the photo - it's the snapped cable. There's a video here that contains the image. Creepy.

I think that photo is supposed to show the snapped-off end of the cable that broke, attached to the side of the tower.

The ride in question is like this one, in Texas.

I'd just like to go on record here saying that the photo seems to be a snapped cable.

This is awful; it reminds me why I haven't been on an amusement park ride in nine or ten years. I have a keen eye for rust, and ear for mechanical grinding, and every time I've been at a theme park in the past few years, the combination of those two has kept me on the ground.

I worked at a Six Flags briefly.
The kids who ran the rides were the same ones who would bitch about missing hours due to summer school because they flunked eleventh grade math... again.

I also, as "talent[1]" made near the top of the pay scale in terms of seasonal workers. I made less than $8 an hour.

Take that for what you will.

[1]I worked the haunted house part of the year, and made the same scale when I worked clerical in the non-halloween season.

I suppose there are statistics somewhere showing your likelihood of losing a limb in a car accident vs. amusement park ride, but who cares, some poor little 13 year old lost her feet. I don't even want to think about all the limbs being lost in wars we started and due to land mines, because I can't even wrap my head around it.

I used to live a mile from there while in graduate school. If it's the ride I'm thinking of, it is right inside the front entrance. Man, I hope no little kids saw those feet come off.

Could they be reattached?

Actually yes. If you go back to the original link and watch the report video, they said they did surgery to attach both feet and that such surgery these days is often successful.