The most dangerous thing that ever happened to me at Ratanga Junction was a solid chunder after riding the Cobra twice in quick succession.
Unless it was covered up via some very adept PR work, I never heard of a serious injury, let alone a death, occurring at Ratanga, but the same cannot be said for the infamous Action Park.
The summertime New Jersey amusement park that was popular in the late 1970s through to the 1990s, and advertised as fun for the entire family, is the subject of a new HBO Max doccie, Class Action Park, and it’s not hard to see why.
It was eventually shut in 1996, but by that point, at least six people had died as a result of ‘mishaps’ on different rides.
More from Nerdist:
Interviewing former employees, famous patrons, and gobsmacked city officials, the film approaches the subject with a mixture of incredulity and fond nostalgia. Watching it is to constantly smack your forehead in wonder; how on Earth did this last so long?
The central figure in the story of Action Park is its founder, businessman Gene Mulvihill; who made his money selling penny stocks like the guys in The Wolf of Wall Street. He was an unscrupulous guy who didn’t care to bring his park’s many wild attractions up to safety standards if it meant spending too much money. He just wanted things he knew would bring in crowds and keep them coming back year after year.
In the age before social media, I guess a death here and there could be covered up, and the crowds kept on flocking in.
Let’s see the trailer:
Makes the Muizenberg waterslides look safe in comparison.
One of the park’s features, the Alpine Slide, was only open for two years, but was still the cause of 14 fractured bones and 26 head injuries.
To get to the start, you took a ski lift, hopped into a ‘sled’, and hurtled down a concrete track.
Consider for a second the Loop-de-Loop Slide, with this from Film Daily:
This slide was a waterslide which aimed to defy physics . . . and failed. The slide was legitimately a waterslide which shot riders downwards only to be thrown into an actual upside down loop at the very end…
“Just from the force of your own bones hitting the Earth, flip over and come down”, says one person who went to the park as a child.
Others say that within a week of the ride being open numerous people walked away with bloody noses from smacking their heads on the slide…
The former director of operations, Adam Ringler, confirmed there was a monetary reward “early on” for employees who would go down the slide as well as for testing other attractions.
All in all, health and safety in New Jersey during the Action Park era was clearly a little too lax.
The doccie will air on HBO Max from tomorrow, August 27.
