Woman killed after fall from roller coaster

For people of all ages, one of the highlights of summer is visiting Maryland’s Six Flags Amusement Park to ride the roller coasters and enjoy the water attractions. Visitors line up each day to experience the thrill rides which take park-goers at dashingly fast speeds up and over loop-the-loops and around hair raising curves. Amusement parks are supposed to be safe and routinely inspected by owners who do not wish to risk a lawsuit based on premises liability; attendees can enjoy all the excitement with no risk of injury.  But is that always true?

In a headline-grabbing incident at a Six Flags park in the southern part of the United States, a woman was killed when she fell from a roller coaster. The ride was extremely high at 14-stories, and it was billed as the world’s tallest steel-hybrid coaster. Investigators are attempting to determine the cause of the fall as they have ruled out foul play. Accordingly, authorities will need to determine whether:

• the ride malfunctioned,
• the woman prevented the safety bar or seatbelt from fastening,
• an employee failed to secure the safety mechanism properly, or
• there was another cause of the fatal injury. 

In a situation where a guest, customer or client is harmed on someone else’s property it can be helpful to discuss the incident with a personal injury attorney. This can happen in an extreme case such as a fall from an amusement park ride, or it can occur in a more common situation such as a slip-and-fall accident on icy sidewalks or a wet floor. In such a case, the property owner can sometimes be held responsible for the injured person’s damages.

Source: Fox Baltimore 45, “Woman’s Fatal Fall From Six Flags Coaster,” July 21, 2013