I was at SDC the day the young man lost his life in FITH. I rode it early in the day and wanted to ride it one last time before my parents and I left. When we walked back to it, there were police cars and an ambulance actually in the park and there was police tape around the FITH entrance. Anyone else there on that day?
Andy, I was on park too. As I was coming back from a lunch break, I saw the rope stretched across the street from the saloon to the lumbercamp and the ambulance and squad car at the exit of FITH. I approached a friend who worked at FITH and was standing at the rope, keeping people back. I asked him what happened. He normally was a friendly, fun loving guy, but that day, he was somber and visibly upset. He told me he couldn't talk about it. He said that an accident had happened. That was it. Later that night, watching the TV news, I found out. Next day, we were met at the timeclocks by an employee who said that no one on park was to discuss the incident if asked by tourists or media. An investigation was held. It was determined that a dispatcher accidently put a loaded train through the maintenance area, and that a man in the front of the train hit his head on a low hanging bar over the track there. He died. I personally knew the dispatcher. He and I had worked in some of the SDC restaurants the two previous summers, we both transferred to the attractions department about the same time. My friend finished the rest of the 1980 season at SDC, and the next year he did not come back. I do not know what happened to him. I do not know if he was not rehired, or just sought other employment. SDC came to a settlement with the family of the man, and the incident was put to rest. You can see an article taken from the Branson newspaper discussing the FITH accident on my Flickr account, but there are about ten or twelve pages of photos and articles related to SDC on it, and you will have to look through them all to find the article. This was a sad day in the history of the company but lessons were learned, and to the best of my knowledge no one else has died at SDC due to an accident. There was an incident in the last ten years at lost river where a concrete walkway collapsed and a woman was injured. She did not die. A settlement was reached with her, too. SDC takes things like this SERIOUSLY, and investigates and reviews everything from every angle to MAKE SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN! You can find the FITH article at my Flickr account at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/juniordugan
Have you ever heard the old legend of someone being beheaded on FITH?! LOL! I am not making light of what happened, but I have a feeling it came from this accident. The story goes that a young guy stood up in the car just as it took the dip from under the train's headlight and sheared his head off. It fell into a woman's lap.
Then there is another story of supposedly a couple of snakes falling from the ceiling of FITH and landing in people's laps.
Ever heard these?!
Bluntly, those stories are BULLSHIT. Never happened to the best of my knowledge.
I think snakes on the ceiling is a rumor for every dark ride ever made.
I thought that the guy died because he stood up while it was going through the maintenance area. Wouldn't he have to be really tall if he hit his head and no one else did without standing?
The story as I know it is related above. Let's don't try to dig too deeply into this. It happened, it's over. It will NOT happen again at FITH like that. I'm a little touchy on this subject because I knew the crew at FITH and was working the day it happened.
Oh, no meaness intended, Junior. Consider it dropped! Just wondering if anyone else had heard those stories.
You can find more about this in another thread or two. Just do a search if you want to read other comments.
Junior I always wondered about the guys working there the day it happened the M&C guys have told me the stories, but I have never heard about the ride operator. I can't imagine.
I was also working there that day, Junior. It was a sad day and is still pretty hush-hush to this day. The way I heard it though is that when the train was diverted into the maintenance area, people in the first car saw the obstruction and ducked. A person sitting in the front of the second car was the one that died. Rumors often surface that he was decapitated, but that is not the case.
Zephon, in reviewing the two articles about the accident I've posted on Flickr, I discovered you are right. The man was in the second car of the two car "train" and the people in the first car ducked, he did not, and struck his head on a low overhang.
That FITH accident article (two articles, actually) are posted on what is currently page 7 of my Flickr account, about half way down. If you left click on the articles, it will enlarge the size, and click on the magnifiying glass, and it will really blow it up so you can easily read the articles. Both are actually taken from the Springfield New Leader. The first article relays basic info about the accident, the second recaps and updates and relates the ride is reopened. My Flickr account address is in my first posting on this thread.
I was informed that the changes in FITH ( shortening scene) was done partially because of the accident or during the
adjustments after the tragedy. Any truth to that at all?
Maybe Copper or Zephon can comment. I don't know.
^^ No, I don't think so. The main reason given was to shorten the ride so they could send more people through in a given amount of time.
Quote from: Junior on June 19, 2010, 12:05:42 AM
That FITH accident article (two articles, actually) are posted on what is currently page 7 of my Flickr account, about half way down.
Shortcut directly to the article: http://www.flickr.com/photos/juniordugan/4284445519/
Thanks, KBCraig!
You are right Zephon, shortening the ride was for capacity reasons only.
I had heard of this incident, but I thought it had happened closer to the same time that SDC opened until I read the date of those articles. How did he end up in an empty train that was about to be put in the maintenance area?
Both of the two cars in the train had people in them. A dispatcher mistakenly routed the train into the maintenance area. Maintenance men saw what happened, shouted out to the people, and the people on the first car ducked and missed the low overhang, the fellow in the front of the second car didn't duck, and his head struck the overhang. The event occurred in 1980.