跟讀練習: The Son Of Beast Roller Coaster Accidents - 通過影片學習英語口語

It’s a beautiful summer’s day during the holiday  season in Mason, Ohio. Friends and family have traveled to enjoy the rides and attractions  at King’s Island. The amusement park boasts the biggest wooden roller coaster in the world  - Son of Beast. But at 4:45 p.m on July 9, 2006, the fun stops. Screams ring out, but not the ones  you’d typically expect from a roller coaster.

The Son of Beast ride malfunctioned, resulting  in a total of 27 people being rushed to the hospital with mostly chest and neck injuries. One  of the victims said, “When we hit, immediately it was like hitting a brick wall. You just know,  wait a minute, that’s not part of the ride.” She recalled her thoughts going  through the loop:‘“I was thinking, oh my god, we’re going to  die. We’re going to die.” Thankfully, none of the victims  were critically injured, and most of them could leave after five  hours. However, this incident was not isolated; It was one of many on this  notoriously dangerous roller coaster.

Son of Beast was initially a highly ambitious  project, costing the owner, Paramount Parks, $20 million for construction. Roller coaster  engineer Werner Stengel designed the ride -  a legend in the industry. He is credited with  creating the first-ever modern looping coaster, Revolution, in 1976.  The park announced  plans to build the ride in 1999.

Stengel was involved in the early design of  the ride, but the Roller Coaster Corporation of America undertook most building  work. Construction involved 2.5 million board feet of wood,  2,400 concrete  footers, and 225,000 21-inch steel bolts.

The ride was named after the  biggest roller coaster globally, The Beast, and was supposed to continue this  legacy. The Son of Beast became the first-ever wooden hypercoaster over 200 feet (60 meters). It  also had a 118 foot (36 meters) tall vertical loop and traveled at 78mph (125km/hr).  The ride’s size and structure broke seven world records and was characterized  by its terrifying speeds and multiple drops.

Son of Beast had issues right from the get-go.  During its construction, a 50 by 100-foot section of wooden supports collapsed due to  strong gusts of wind. Later on, Paramount Parks would fire the Roller Coaster Corporation  of America and finish the project themselves.

Things didn’t get much better. The  ride was first opened on April 28, 2000, but had to be closed the same day  to repair a small area of the track.

With the opening already delayed, an additional  month was an unexpected setback. Son of Beast’s first year went on to have further track and  sensor malfunctions. It became notoriously rough and would often jolt. Since the park was  now losing money and damaging its reputation, it sued the Roller Coaster Corporation of  America for damages but lost the case.

Later that year, while in motion, the Son of Beast  stopped abruptly. Although there were no injuries, the passengers had descended via the staircase,  and the ride was shut for three hours.

Inspectors discovered a rough  15-foot section of track.

In 2001, two more incidents occurred.  One left a rider with a broken vertebra, the other a broken neck. Then in 2003, someone  who hurt their back was admitted to hospital.

Despite this, no design flaws were reported  to be responsible. Instead, the injuries were attributed to the victim’s preexisting conditions.  No further information was published about them.

However, July the 9th, 2006, was different.

Late that afternoon, one of the trains -  which was passing through - cracked a support beam. The accident took place in the ‘rose  bowl,’ which is halfway through the ride.

Although this train made it back safely, this  crack would prove problematic for the next train.

The lack of support led to sagging in the  track, which was further exacerbated when the force of the second carriage passed through.  However, the crash didn’t stop the train, and the carriage made its way  back to the loading station.

A vertical wooden support was simply unable to  carry the weight, forcing it to crack as well.

The ride jolted abruptly, leaving riders with  multiple injuries.  Thankfully, nobody died.

What separates this incident from other accidents  was that the ride’s designers were responsible.

A state ride inspector said that  the wooden support beams were "cracked and had actually splintered in places." There was also an abrupt bump, which he believes  was why people were injured. The Ohio Department of Agriculture, which is also the authority  responsible for roller coaster safety, said that the beam caused a "slight dip in the track,”  resulting in “a pothole effect, injuring riders." Theme Park Consultant Dennis Spiegel  said,  "It's not unusual to have timbers break in wooden roller coasters. As  coasters have stress placed on them, and as they age, they will have  those kinds of situations." Jennifer Wright was among the 27 victims and took  Paramount Parks to court. Part of her evidence was a video interview with Rick Schmizze, who  the Ohio Department of Agriculture assigned to investigate the incident. The investigator gave  quite a damning reflection on what happened.

Shmizze claimed that the park should have  known that an accident like this could happen since its inception. He testified  during the court proceedings, saying, “They would fix them in a Band-Aid style  and then wait and see what happened.

They never really stopped and said, ‘we’ve  got a problem with this ride as a whole.’ ” Additionally, the investigator said  there was “excessive lateral motion,” where the track would constantly sway  from side to side. This led to loose timber connections, wearing of bolt holes,  track misalignment, and unexpected vibration.

He explained that fixing issues on one part moved  the problems onto another part of the track.

Jonathan Yanik also took the park to court after  suffering a shoulder injury that required surgery.

The lawsuit asked for $500,000  in compensatory damages and more than $350,000 in punitive damages.

Other lawsuits were filed, but  most of them reached settlements.

Both Jennifer Wright and Jonathan  Yanik wanted to bring this to trial, so it would be made public, and nothing  like this would be allowed to happen again.

The victims said that when individuals agree  to settlements instead of going to court, the public often assumes that the claimant was simply  looking for money. The pair were confident that there was wrong-doing, feeling unthreatened by the  multi-million dollar company’s high-paid lawyers.

Wright said, “All I ever wanted was the truth to  come out and no one to ever be hurt again.“I am still fighting, and I would love to offer any help  or evidence. I feel their pain and suffering.” Eventually, Wright accepted damages on the  basis that Shmizze’s testimony was made public.

She said, “I would feel like garbage  if I held on to this information and then a year from now  somebody was really hurt bad.” After the incident, the general consensus was that the most sensible option would  be to close the ride forever.

The editor of Theme Park Insider, Robert Niles, said, ‘A broken main support beam on a roller  coaster is like a broken leg on a racehorse.

Sure, you could spend many millions to repair  it. But in most cases, you just put 'er down.’’ But the park didn’t ‘put ‘er down’. Instead,  the ride continued after a number of changes.

Most notably, removing its vertical loop,  which they denied was related to the incident.

Kings Island spokesperson Don Helbig said, “The removal of loop was a decision the  park made so we could use different trains.

The trains the ride now uses are lighter and  more comfortable than the original trains.” This decision to not retire the ride  would come back to haunt the park in 2009 with yet another accident. According  to Dayton Daily News, Jill Tavella said she “felt dizzy and had a bad headache” after  riding the roller coaster on May 31 and was later diagnosed with “a broken blood vessel in her  head.” However, an investigation into the incident cleared the park of any wrongdoing. Nonetheless,  the park was still reluctant to reopen the ride.

Speaking at the time, Kings Island General Manager  Greg Scheid said, “Eight days after I took over, the accident occurred. We have struggled with  it ever since. We have smoothed out the ride.

Most people will say they are comfortable with  the ride, but I am not comfortable with the ride.” Subsequently, the Son of Beast never ran again.

The park never announced its retirement;  instead, the ride just faded out of existence.

In 2010, the ride had disappeared from the park’s  website. Then, in 2012, the ride was demolished, and all of those years of building and  maintaining the ride was now reduced to rubble on the ground. The park was  left with a ten-million-dollar loss.

Paramount Parks wanted to sue the Roller Coaster  Corporation of America, but that company went bankrupt in 2005. King’s Island then shifted its  focus on suing the now-defunct company’s insurance provider. In 2008, they lost the case, costing  the company even more in legal fees. This was on top of the settlements paid to the dozens of  people who were injured by the roller coaster.

It’s hard to look back at the Son of Beast  ride as anything but a complete disaster, both in terms of how it put people’s lives  at risk and was a colossal waste of money.

Hopefully, the park (and the industry  as a whole) will learn lessons from it.

In the Son of Beast’s place at King’s Island is  an entirely different ride and a commemorative tombstone to it where riders queue. The new  attractions’ name is aptly called The Banshee, a wailing ghost in Irish mythology while  the ghost of the Son of Beast lives on.

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