As I recount my memories of working at Fire in the Hole, I want to say that Silver Dollar City was one of the finest companies that I’ve ever worked for. The reason that my experiences were so good there was due to the positive attitude of management, staff, and coworkers across the park. I learned that I could be a leader there and many other lessons that I will never forget.
As Silver Dollar City begins spring break days in 2023, I’d like to mention that there was no such thing when I worked there. The first big event in the Spring was Young Christian Days, which we would sometimes refer to as Young Heathen Days since a few unruly, unsupervised kids could occasionally make for a rough day. Spring at SDC was very slow then, but if employees were willing to join the labor pool, they could start work in early March prepping the park or if someone called in sick or had an open position. Originally, I worked labor pool for the money, however, I got to the point where I enjoyed every spring, not knowing what I would be doing day to day and having lots of diverse experiences. I worked in food service for a couple of weeks, grilling, chicken and corn at the open grill that used to stand in front of where Time Traveler is now. I worked on every attraction in the park, save the train and the cave. I spent one really fascinating week with the entertainers on the square selling merchandise. This was the Victorian year which we have discussed on this forum many times before and we all know that only remnants of this era exist. When the actors were not acting, they were selling Victorian-style merchandise. Of course, someone had to watch the table while they were performing and that was me. I got to know many of them pretty well that summer.
While those experiences are stories in their own right let’s talk about my first season at FITH. I had already worked at the Great American Plunge for a little bit, so I was familiar with the general safety procedures. At FITH there were two buttons that would kill all power to the ride. One was downstairs in the maintenance area and the other was at the ride controller console. If any employee demanded that the ride power be “killed” any other employee would do it without question. Everyone was trusted. Even though it took considerable time and effort to restart the ride, test, and get it going again, no one wanted any injuries to happen on the ride so we all followed our training in that regard.
At this time there were no gates on the loading dock, neither entrance nor exit. Just yellow lines that sometimes took considerable effort to keep people behind. It was not unusual for a guest to cross the line while the trains were moving and start walking toward the moving train causing the ride to be shut down. FITH staff would sometimes have to referee between guests because everyone was mad at the person who caused the ride to be shut down.
The restraint system on the ride used to be much different as well. Small people could wriggle out of the restraints if they knew what they were doing and larger people often did not fit. At that time all the ride staff were males to fit the theme of “fireman.” The staff would sometimes use all of our body weight to lean on the restraint bar to lock in a larger person. This looked extremely painful to the rider, but we would do it at rider request. Of course, this would never be allowed today! One time a guest insisted that the young man on the dock put all of his weight into the restraint and push as hard as he could so the bar would lock. We let the train sit on the dock for a moment to make sure the guest was fine and that he could make it for three minutes. He reassured us that everything was fine. On the dock, trains are controlled by conveyor belts. However, once the train is dispatched and connects with electricity, there’s no stopping it other than to kill the ride. As the train with this guest got out into the first portion of the ride he started screaming, “I can’t take it, I can’t do it! Let me off!”
The dock worker yelled “kill the ride”, the button was hit and the ride powered off. By the way, it gets really quiet when all the machinery that runs FITH suddenly stops! Staff started clearing the dock, the ride was evacuated and it was several minutes to get the ride up and going again. The other guests were pretty upset at that guy and the employee that evacuated that train had to tell that trainload of people that they could be first in line when the ride came back up in order to keep them from verbally assaulting the poor guy who was too big for the ride.
I still have my training manual for FITH. There are evacuation doors throughout the ride, including the doors in some of the show buildings. I will post later about the ride being divided for maintenance and evacuation purposes. Again, I hope this was at least somewhat entertaining, thanks for reading!
