They hold hands as the carriage moves up the
steep ascent, their heartbeats quickening to the chugging sound coming from below their
feet. As the car reaches the summit, he squeezes
her hand tightly, giving her some assurance. He had to coax and beg to get her on to this
ride. She smiles at him nervously as the car moves
along the top of the ride. The vast panorama of the amusement park lies
in front of them. She tenses, and he laughs. Whoosh, the car flies down. G-force pushes their heads back. They’re both screaming now. The car makes the second ascent, only on the
upwards trajectory they both hear a loud bang. Before they know what’s happened, they are
hurtling through the air towards a nexus of steel bars. They look at each other for the last time. And that, dear viewers, has to be one of the
worst ways to die. In the US alone, from 1987 to 2000, there
were 4.5 ride deaths in amusement parks every year, which might not sound like much to you,
but it’s enough. You also have to consider that as far as safety
goes, the US has pretty strict standards. The deaths weren’t all on rollercoasters,
of course. Just to give you more variety of deaths, today
we’ll include other kinds of incidents that happened when people sat in a carriage and
went for a ride at an amusement park. But before we look at the US, let’s first
swing by Europe, the continent where the precursor to the modern roller coaster was invented. We’re actually going to start with something
quite recent. No one died in the incident, but what happened
will give you a good idea of how human bodies deal with hitting things on the track. The accident happened at a theme park called
Alton Towers in England, one of the country’s favorite places to go for a day out. The ride was “The Smiler”, but trust us,
no one was smiling on that ride on June 2 at about 1.50 pm. An empty safety carriage first set off on
the vast network of labyrinthine rails. The thing was, it just stopped on the track. That didn’t bode well for the full carriage
that was next to go. Luckily, it wasn’t traveling at its top
speed of 52mph (85kph) when it made contact with the other carriage. In case you’re wondering, some rides can
go as fast as 149 mph (240.0 kph). The 16 riders hit the stationary carriage
traveling at 20 mph (32 kph), but just think how it would feel to have your legs hit a
steel train at that speed? Five people at the front were seriously injured,
with two young women both losing a leg. The accident was partially blamed on strong
winds that prevented the test carriage from completing its journey, but the park was also
to blame and had to pay out about $6.8 million. We told you this story just to give you an
idea of what happens when things go wrong. The downside to rollercoasters is that when
accidents do happen, people tend to hit very hard things going very fast. A rollercoaster is really no place to fall,
either, as you’ll now discover in one of the worst tragedies of all time. The accident happened in England, too, but
way back in 1972. It was the kind of accident many of us have
panic attacks over when we are in the queue about to get on a ride. The ride was called the Big Dipper and the
theme park was called Battersea Park. There are survivors in this tale, too, and
some of them told the story of what happened on that fateful day. 31 people paid about 20 cents to ride the
dipper, advertised as the “thrill-a-minute joy-ride where you pay to be scared.” Most of those folks on the ride were just
young teens, many of whom were on a school trip. As per usual, as the cars climbed up the track,
everyone was laughing and screaming, and some were trying not to pee their pants. It went up, and up, and up…and then the
cars disconnected from the track. They were now in free fall. Suffice to say, a few bladders broke. A survivor later recounted that just as the
carriage disconnected everything seemed to go in slow motion, and then whoosh, they flew
back. People spilled out, hanging on to anything
they hit. One survivor said they will never forget the
panicked expression of one young girl as she lost her grip and fell to her death. Their carriage has somehow stuck up there,
but to say the least, it was on shaky ground. The woman said, “This girl screamed that
she wanted to get off, but she leant on a wooden barrier and it collapsed. I tried to grab for her, but I saw her fall
to the ground in front of me. I looked up, and next to the carriage people
were hanging out over the tracks. There was blood everywhere.” Five kids died that day from the trauma of
hitting the ground or the ride. 13 others were injured. The park never paid anything out, but the
ride was closed after that. As for the cause of death when you fall, a
doctor was once asked about it and this was his reply: “Most people who fall from a height die
because they fracture their spine near the top and so transect the aorta which carries
blood out of the heart.” It’s usually a quick death, especially from
a great height, but then the falling part must be a bit weird. Survivors of falls have said their only thoughts
were, damn, I’m going to die. One woman who survived a big fall said she
didn’t think about much at all and just listened to the “whispering of the wind.” Ok, so that’s how you die when you free
fall. We’ll discuss later the nightmare of being
flung from a carriage, which, let’s face it, we’ve all worried about, but let’s
now look at a completely different way to die. You can tell us in the comments if you’d
prefer your bones to be smashed or dying this way. It happened in Australia back in 1979, and
to this day is the worst amusement park disaster the country has ever seen. You are all grown up now, so we expect if
your friend asked you to go on the ghost train you’d turn your nose up. Ghost trains aren’t very scary and they
are not usually thought of as being dangerous. Well, the one in Sydney’s Luna Park was
on one particular day. You don’t want to be riding a ghost train
when there’s a fire for the simple reason being that these sorts of rides are generally
in covered tunnels. So, when a blaze got going on this ride in
the morning of June 9, the tunnel filled with thick smoke. The carriages actually kept moving, but it
seems some people got off and tried to get out as fast as they could since they were
choking. Of the 35 people on the ride, 28 of them came
out of the tunnel crying and coughing. Nonetheless, a father and his two kids died
in there, as did four other kids. Most of them died from smoke inhalation, although
some of them were burned to death. As for how that must have felt, you all know
very well that burning hurts like hell. Until your nerves are burnt through, you will
feel the most excruciating pain you’ve ever felt. Dying from smoke inhalation would be better
because once there is no oxygen you’d pass out before the flames got you. This really is a living nightmare, being trapped
in a fiery tunnel. As for how it happened, electricity was blamed,
and a cigarette was blamed, but it was most likely arson committed by an organized crime
group. Apparently, it was related to one gangster
wanting to take over the park. As you’ll now see, even out in the open
floating on water can be deadly. You’ve all seen those rides that consist
of people sitting in a round raft and traveling down some rapids. You don’t generally have many concerns about
getting on such rides. That’s because they are usually as safe
as houses, but in October 2016 in Australia’s Dreamworld amusement park, things went wrong
on the Thunder River Rapids Ride. Basically, a pump failed, and that meant a
sudden drop in the water level. This led to one of the empty rafts getting
stuck on the conveyor that moves the rafts. The raft behind that, carrying six people,
hit it at speed. What happened next was awful. The raft with the people in it was pushed
into a vertical position, causing its occupants to fall out. Worse, some of them were pulled down into
the moving components of the ride. Four adults died and two kids survived. Paramedics later said that the best doctors
in the world couldn’t have helped the victims. While those kids were thrown into the open
water, the adults were trapped in the components under the water. We can’t find the cause of death, but it
was either on impact with the machinery or drowning, none of which are pleasant. The park was at fault and had to pay out $3
million. Is drowning the worst way to die? One person that drowned and was later resuscitated
said, “I was terrified out of my mind, I didn’t have any air to breathe.” She then said at one point she accepted her
death. She added, “I tried kicking with my legs. And then everything went black.” Basically, at some point, your brain will
make you take a breath. It’s actually called the “Break Point.” Water then floods the lungs and the person,
still alive, can’t fight due to the lack of oxygen in their blood. Some people have described this as torture,
although one survivor said, “I just let go, and my flaccid body just floated in the
water for a few seconds. My lungs had more or less given out, and there
was no pain, just comfort.” Ok, now for something you’d never expect
to happen in a million years. It happened in 2019 on a pendulum ride at
Kankaria Amusement Park in Ahmedabad in India. A round carriage rotated as a pendulum moved
the carriage up and down. It started off quite slow, with many of the
30 occupants looking like they were not scared at all. But when the pendulum started swinging really
high, people started screaming. For good reason, too, because the pendulum
arms snapped and the carriage bashed into the ride’s triangular frame. Looking at it, you would expect that many
people died and even if they didn’t, you’d think a lot of those folks would have suffered
some very serious injuries, similar to how a fly might end up after you’ve hit it with
a newspaper. Fortunately for some people, their side of
the carriage didn’t make an impact and they were kept safely in their seats and didn’t
suffer any serious physical injuries. But two people died whose side of the carriage
did make an impact. They were basically crushed to death, while
many others were critically injured. As for how the ride’s main arm could just
break like that, one expert had this to say about the tragedy: “India has a long-standing problem which
allows the use of inferior, unauthorized copies of rides made by either local companies or
rides sourced from other countries, often with fatal results.” Again, no one really expects that kind of
thing to happen, but there’s one thing we all fear when we get on a fast ride, and that
is being flung out of the carriage. Does that really happen? The answer is yes, and it’s happened quite
a few times. But, seeing as we are doing a round-the-world
trip today we’ll now head over to China. In 2017, a girl was strapped into the “Travel
Through Space” ride at Chaohua Park, close to the city of Chongqing. Information is scant, but it seems as the
ride was in full flight she went into full flight, except not in the direction the other
passengers were going in. She was flung into metal railings and died
later in hospital. What’s shocking is that her seatbelt had
not been working and the bars supposed to hold her in were not tight enough. How it would feel to die this way is hard
to say, because once she made the impact she was very likely knocked out. Perhaps the worst part of this death was the
few seconds flying through the air. We’re going to stay with China just because
this next accident was totally insane. It happened in 2010 at an amusement park in
Shenzhen. The ride was called “Space Journey” and
it was supposed to simulate what it’s like taking off in a rocket. Basically, a circular carriage was lifted
up in the air and spun at a high velocity, giving the people the feeling of experiencing
double gravity. That was all well and good until one of the
carriages disconnected and went flying into the other carriages. It fell to the ground in flames, looking like
a real space rocket when things go terribly wrong. No cause of death was given, but we expect
the 50-foot fall might have led to serious trauma. On top of that, the carriage was in flames
when it landed. They didn’t stand a chance. They might not have had much time to think,
but this next victim certainly did. He was an operator at a ride at Naudières
theme park in Sautron, France. The ride was actually one of those kids’
rides that you see going very slowly, often made to look like a big caterpillar. This kind of ride should be very safe indeed,
but the operator decided to get out of his booth while the carriages were still slowly
moving by. He then slipped in the gap between two of
the carriages and his legs fell through the holes in the track. Since the ride was still going, you can only
imagine the pain as his body was pushed by the carriage. Someone managed to turn the ride off, but
the man was so badly hurt that to save his life doctors had to amputate both legs at
the scene. The guy still didn’t survive. He wasn’t actually trained to control that
ride so the park owner spent 6-months in prison. As for how it would feel to die this way,
it certainly deserves to be on the worst ways to die list. We’re not sure how long the guy was conscious
for, but we guess he had some time to think about what was happening. The cause of death was likely due to being
crushed, which can lead to what are called lysis, ischemia, and vascular compromise. In laymen’s terms, cells die when a part
of the body is crushed. Lactic acid is released and blood vessels
are compressed, and that can lead to death. Prior to this, if the person is conscious,
the injury of course is about as mentally traumatic as you can get. The strange thing is, there is something called
reperfusion syndrome. This is when the person is released from the
thing crushing them. They suddenly get lots of oxygen to the tissues
and this can have a paradoxical effect that puts the person in a rather good mood. Soon after, they usually drop dead, that’s
why it is sometimes called, “smiling death.” Let’s hope the French dude had the last
laugh. Now over to the US, where either the most
accidents happen at amusement parks or there are just more reports available for our researchers
to find. It’s hard to say what the worst disaster
in the US was, but the Haunted Castle disaster at Six Flags Great Adventure park in 1984
has to be up there. In short, a 14-year old lit a cigarette for
some light after a bulb went out. The place caught fire, a little too easily
we should say, and eight teens lost their lives. We’ve already covered fire, though, so we’ll
add another US tragedy to this story, something a bit more unique. It’s unique, sad, and shocking, that’s
for sure. In 2016, a group of people set off from the
top of a ride called the highest water slide in the world, and man, it looked scary. It was called the “Verrückt” which can
be translated as “insane” in German. It was located at the Schlitterbahn Kansas
City amusement park and since its opening in 2014, it has attracted a lot of attention
from enthusiasts of extreme sports. Of the three people that rode it that day,
one of them was Caleb Schwab, the 10-year-old son of Kansas state representative Scott Schwab. The others were two women. They went on their downward trajectory from
a height of 168 feet 7 inches (51.38 meters), traveling at around 70 mph (110 km/h), which
really is insane for a water slide. Literally insane, given a lifeguard at the
park had noticed how dangerous it was, once saying, “I told my friends and family it
was only a matter of time until someone died on Verrückt.” Prior to the fatality, there were at least
13 pretty serious accidents, mostly down to the sheer speed people traveled at. Some folks got off and had to be treated for
facial injuries, concussions, or slipped discs. What happened is they were thrown at high
speed into the netting around the ride. That happened to Caleb and the women with
him after the raft went airborne on the second hill. One woman hit the net and some metal rings
and broke her jaw. The other woman ended up with a fractured
face and cuts that needed stitching, but Celeb hit the support of the netting and he was
decapitated. The raft should not have gone airborne like
that. It was speculated that the reason it did was
that the little boy, light in weight, sat at the front. The women were on the heavy side, weighing
275 pounds (125 kg), and 197 pounds (89 kg). That apparently was the problem, as was the
entire setup of this dangerous ride. We are not blaming the victims, of course,
just pointing out what happened. The ride was closed down in 2018 and the Schwab
family settled for $20 million. No one went to prison, although they almost
did. As for this being on the list of worst ways
to die, that depends on how you look at it. For the family, it had to be one of the most
traumatic experiences a human can face, more so when they were asked to view the body of
the deceased. The death itself must have been painless for
the victim, but with oxygen still in the brain, it’s likely that a person who has lost their
head remains conscious for a while. For how long, we don’t know. Scientists have talked about this and no fixed
time has been stated. It is possible that the young boy’s last
thoughts when he was hurtling through the air were, “What is going on?” That makes it at least a very weird way to
die. Now you need to watch, “Totally Messed Up
Things That Have Happened at Walt Disney World.” Or, have a look at...
