Girl's feet cut off at SFKK - Superman: Tower of Power

[EagleFan344]

http://www.wlky.com/news/13547817/detail.html?rss=lou&psp=news

I really want to know how this could of happened.

[Director_Guy]

That's so horrible.... and weird. Apparently the cable snapped and severed her feet.

[FParker185]

beat me to it

But yeah, when a wire rope snaps it whips violently and would slice though bone and flesh like a hot knife though butter, incidentally that's why Wave Swingers/YoYo's use chains rather than wire rope.

[BullInDaBack4Life]

This is just terrible.

[zjohn1988]

What the................okay i've never been in SFKK, but where are there wires in spots other than the catch wagons? If its the same as Giant Drop, those are the only cables... and even then, they're attached to the wagon, not the cars...how did this happen and could the ride ops have prevented this?

[Danhockey04]

Wow, that is awful. I rode that last year too before it was switched over. We might see all SF's tower rides to be affected by this with GD closing too for further inspections.

[FParker185]

seems people like cable better so will switch to that


well if the "cable" broke near the top it would whip violently, it was definitely a lifting "cable".

Also the whitness in the video said the car crashed to the ground, obviously it did not crash but landed normally in the brakes meaning that it was the "cables" on the victims car, as if it was a different car's "cables" breaking the whole ride would have E stopped and she'd be stuck up off the ground and in a pretty crappy situation.

And I'm thinking our Giant Drop (along with all others) will close for an emergency cable inspection.

[w00dland]

This deserves a "dude wtf six flags."

I am really confused how a tight cable above the car could snap and somehow make it below the car.

[FParker185]

if it broke like say 20 feet above the car it could easily hit anything in a 40 foot wide circle around the car. There are alot of variables dictating the path of the wire rope, such as the location of the final intact strands within the rope and of course gravity and ricocheting off other objects.


Wire ropes are *extremely* dangerous.

[FParker185]

oh, almost forgot, Wire Ropes only break under 2 conditions. Overloading (possible) or fatigue (also possible). Overloading will snap suddenly and without warning, with fatigue there will be warning signs days, weeks and even months ahead of time if you know what to look for.

The only way I can see overloading being the cause is if the car was still in the brakes and the motor kicked into high speed but I see that as unlikely, as even then I doubt the motors and brakes would be strong enough to cause a catastrophic failure of the lifting cables.

So yeah, with the more likely scenario of fatigue I issue a retractable for the time being, Way to Go! six flags

[CoasterDave316]

For those wondering about Giant Drop. If I remember correctly, all of Giant Drops cables were replaced towards the end of last season.

[Danhockey04]

The cables were all replaced just recently on GD, but I still think they may close it for precautionary reasons and just check everything again. These commands would be given to them by corporate office.

[shockwave guy mark]

UPDATE:

Giant Drop Is Now Closed.

They said on the news "Safety is our top priority, and a simmillar ride at Six Flags Great America is now shut down as well, until a full investigation is done to see what happened"" or something like that.

Even worse... I am going to six flags tomorow.

[punkbunny24242]

This is such a horrible and scary story. It really makes me re-think going on these free fall rides. I was just on Giant Drop last week with my nephews and his friends. Scary. My heart goes out to the victim!

[RagingBullFan]

Parker,

Not to disagree completely with what you are saying, but a snapping wire rope usually won't sever body parts when it snaps, only severe lacerations with deep internal injuries.

What it sounds like happened here is one of the 3 lifting cables broke, then became wedged under the car.

When the operators brought the right back down it sounds like the cable was caught up behind the car and acted like a saw.

While I can't go into too much detail as to why Giant Drop was closed at the end of last year, 3 cables did show ( as Parker mentioned) showing of fatigue wear (Also known as "tumbleweeds"). These signs are very visible so I cannot see how this would've gone unnoticed.

Not to say it happened, but a lack of proper lubrication on the cables will lead to very sudden fatigue failure that appears as a overloading failure.

[LAFFfan4lyfe]

oh my gosh, this sounded horrible. I didn't even think that something like a cable could do something like this. My heart goes out to the girl and her family.

[demon boy]

Not to say it happened, but a lack of proper lubrication on the cables will lead to very sudden fatigue failure that appears as a overloading failure.

Yes, true, 'cause, have you seen SFKK? Its the diritiest, unkept six flags park out there. Its more of a carnival than a park. The only clean thing i see is De Luge.

And my prayers go to the family and victim. Very tragic and sad.

[!)EJAVU-FAN!]

When I read the story my heart stopped. I asked myself if I wanted to read about it. Just thinking about seeins a 13 y/o girl sitting calmly with feet cut off at the ankle just scares the living out of me. That story makes me want to never ride a free-fall again. If I do. I am keeping my feet up the whole time.

[rct2wizard360]

Oh my god.

This is terrible.
My condolences to the family.

And yes, Giant Drop is officially closed.

Can't blame Intamin for this one.

[Galvan]

Mythbusters had an episode about a steel wire rope snapping into the carcass of a dead pig, and as RagingBullFan stated, it only caused lacerations.


Definately a freak accident.

[Danhockey04]

Here is a video of a news report, it shows some views of the cable and air shots. You have to accept the warning for gruesome scenes, but there really isn't gruesome scenes, just people talking about it.

[rct2wizard360]

God that must have been awful to watch.

I still can't picture the cable doing that.

[Suf03sfgam]

I saw the myth busters cable episode as well and I don’t agree with their findings, with the right sized cable and the right amount of force it can slice you in half. Ok now I’m going to dump on Ragingbullfans theory there are load cells and tensioners on those cables, If one of the cables were to break the ride would stop and sit where it happened until maintenance reset the ride, brought the other cars down, disabled the car that was messed up, put the cart on the car next to the problem car, rode that car up and pulled the manual release on the problem car. According to the reports the cable snapped and then the cars dropped, the passengers were not stalled up at the top for any period of time. I see no way a snapped cable could get under the car and take her legs off, but we will see what the investigators find.

[rct2wizard360]

So I'm just making sure I'm getting this right, the cable severed part of her legs, as the car was falling?

[Iggy ACE]

All Intamin drop towers are closed in the states... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070622/ap_ ... p_EV5kM3wV