Thrill limits: As amusement rides climb higher, doctors heighten their concern

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2001 | 9:59 a.m.

Amusement parks around the globe are competing in a golden era, building ever-higher, faster rides that hurtle thrill seekers through ever-sharper, more teeth-chattering corkscrews and loops.

But as more rides climb higher and drop riders farther -- close to 200 roller coasters have been built in the U.S. in the past three years -- questions are being raised as to the limits of thrills the human body can endure.

Some lawmakers and doctors say a small percentage of riders may have died already from injuries caused by the brain pulling violently against its anchors inside the skull, even while ride systems ran flawlessly and riders stayed securely in their seats.

Other doctors and engineers say the 317 million Americans who spent $4 billion riding roller coasters last year would have put themselves in just as much danger jogging down a side street or napping in bed.

The latter group argues that recent reported deaths on California roller coasters, and two deaths in Clark County, probably have little if anything to do with the rides.

Industry representatives, for their part, say the deaths, while tragic, represent a minuscule percentage when compared with the millions of Americans who ride coasters safely every week.

They are already anticipating the openings of at least another 26 new roller coasters across the country in 2002.

In Las Vegas the Stratosphere has a proposal that would build the 27th coaster, one that could dwarf them all.

The casino wants to build what would be the world's tallest, fastest roller coaster -- carrying passengers 700 feet above Las Vegas Boulevard before letting them drop face-down at speeds of up to 122 mph.

At that height and speed, the thrill ride would be almost twice as high as the 415-foot-high Superman ride in Los Angeles, currently the tallest ride, and would travel almost 20 mph faster than any known roller coaster in the world.

Stratosphere officials declined, however, to discuss with the Sun specific safety features of their proposed ride. The designer, Arrow Dynamics of Clearfield, Utah, outside Salt Lake City, also declined to discuss the ride.

The Las Vegas Planning Commission rejected a preliminary plan for the ride earlier this month, saying the ride would be incompatible with the area.

The casino needs waivers to build the thrill ride, and is scheduled to make its case Oct. 17 before the Las Vegas City Council.

For the casino, the spectacular proposal answers its need to remain competitive with thrill rides and other attractions just south of it on the Strip. It would also boost city revenues, casino reps say, by enticing thrill seekers from around the world.

But along with the thrill, the ride would also carry with it public health issues that have recently been discussed by medical researchers and in media reports.

Two Las Vegas deaths

In the past three years, at least two Las Vegas tourists died shortly after riding a Clark County roller coaster that hits a top speed of just 67 mph and appears to have been operating properly at the time. Though the deaths were not reported by the media, county building inspectors, who oversee fixed-site amusement parks, included the deaths as part of a November 2000 report of roller coaster-related accidents.

The Clark County coroners' reports in the two fatalities, however, do not link the deaths to the thrill rides.

In California this summer, at least three women, ages 42, 28 and 20, died from brain bleeds, or aneurysms, after riding roller coasters that functioned according to specifications.

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office determined that the 28-year-old had a pre-existing medical condition, but coroner Fred Corral said the coaster "was probably a factor" in the woman's death.

No autopsy was performed on the 42-year-old woman. Coroners said the 20-year-old woman died of an aneurysm. No positive link to the roller coaster ride, however, was made in any of the cases.

In May 2000 the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of Bethesda, Md., reported that 23 cases of roller coaster-related brain injuries and deaths have been documented in medical journals since 1979.

The institute researched its report at the request of Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who has sponsored legislation since 1999 that would establish federal regulation of amusement parks, including standard rating systems for rides and requirements for reporting accidents.

Roller coasters now are exempt from federal oversight, unlike cars, trucks and other consumer products.

Neurologist Gregory O'Shanick, medical director of the Brain Injury Association in Alexandria, Va., says the recent deaths and brain injuries sustained by several young, healthy people on functioning rides is "out of ordinary expectations" and must be investigated to determine if there is a link.

And the medical journal Neurology in January 2000 published a study by a neurologist at Ciba University School of Medicine in Japan that suggests a link between high-speed, jerking roller coasters and brain injury.

Other neurologists, such as Doug Smith, a research professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, are skeptical of the purported link between roller coasters and brain deaths.

The number of such reported incidents is extremely small, Smith said, and most seem to stem from pre-existing conditions. Many people who appear to be perfectly healthy have vascular deficiencies that predispose them to aneurysms, Smith said. Such ruptures could be tripped by a variety of light physical activities, he said.

In the case of roller coasters, a person's hyper-excited state, not the mechanisms of the ride, would be a more likely cause of the injuries and fatalities, Smith said.

Head-jerking shifts

In a debate where both sides agree on very little, however, there is agreement from Smith and others that lateral, head-jerking shifts are the most likely link, if there is one, between coasters and brain injury.

Speed alone, or pure gravitational forces from free-fall drops, do not appear to pose significant threats. But when coasters change direction more quickly at higher speeds after longer drops, the brain sloshes more violently inside the skull, pulling at anchoring blood vessels, doctors say.

O'Shanick plans to convene a national panel of doctors, engineers and other experts in November to research the issue.

Clear answers are unlikely any time soon due to several reasons: a lack of federal oversight, no unified requirements for reporting accidents, limited available medical research, and little public awareness of the real risks associated with hopping onto a death-defying ride that at times can create body stresses similar to those experienced by jet pilots and astronauts.

According to national statistics compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, injuries at fixed-site amusement rides that required hospitalization increased 57 percent between 1993 and 2000. Attendance at parks around the country rose just 15 percent in that same time period, from 275 million to 317 million.

In those same seven years, 18 people were killed at fixed-site parks, with no significant upward trends. About 2.6 deaths were recorded each year.

The safety commission, which is pushing for new laws that would allow federal oversight, says injuries are underreported and are likely higher.

Susie Storey, a spokeswoman for the International Association for Amusement Parks and Attractions, which represents more than 800 parks worldwide, doesn't dispute the number of reported accidents.

But she does argue that no link has been determined between brain injuries and newer, faster thrill rides. She also says federal oversight would add an unnecessary layer of regulation. Technology has improved safety for riders, not imperiled them, she said.

"Even though the rides are getting taller and faster, they're also getting safer," Storey said. "Before a bolt is ever turned or steel is bent, these rides are tested repeatedly on computers."

In the two documented Las Vegas cases in which tourists died after riding Clark County roller coasters, both victims had pre-existing medical conditions that may have left them more vulnerable to injury than most riders.

Theresia Verbrugge, a 58-year-old tourist from the Netherlands, had complained of a headache shortly before flying to Las Vegas in March 2000, according to medical reports. She took a ride on a roller coaster on her first day in town, lapsing into unconsciousness shortly after a 144-foot drop in the ride. She died two days later of a cerebral aneurysm, or a burst artery in her brain, Clark County Coroner Ron Flud said.

In February 1998 another tourist, 56-year-old Diane Metjox of Green Valley, Ariz., rode the same roller coaster while taking medication for an undisclosed disease, Flud said. That afternoon she complained of an explosive headache, lapsed into a coma and died the next day.

In Metjox's case Flud's office listed the cause of death as a subdural hematoma, an injury often associated with whiplash in auto accidents. In those injuries, excessive and abrupt rotational forces cause the brain to slosh against the skull, tearing veins from their anchors and causing internal bleeding.

In most cases such injuries are the result of an overpowering physical impact, but medical experts on both sides of the issue say a harsh shift in direction at high speeds could cause similar injuries, even without impact.

Neither death was conclusively linked to the roller coaster and no lawsuits have been filed by the victim's families. Barry Novack, a Beverly Hills, Calif., attorney, has won undisclosed settlements from Disneyland representing such injury victims with no pre-existing medical conditions.

Legal precedent

In what may be the first such case argued in this country, Novack in 1996 represented Zipora Jacob, a 42-year-old molecular biologist. Jacob drifted into a coma shortly after feeling a sharp pain at the back of her head in July 1995 while riding on the Indiana Jones amusement ride in Anaheim, Calif. She suffered a brain hemorrhage and has never returned to work, instead living with a daily regimen of pain killers and a permanent shunt to drain excess fluids.

Novack declined to disclose the amounts of settlements, but said, "They're high roller cases, to use a local term. They're not your nickel slots."

Novack has 10 similar cases pending.

In the two Las Vegas fatalies, Clark County inspectors and third-party engineers hired by the owner of the roller coaster reassessed the ride structure and systems following the incident and found no mechanical problems.

The only change made was the addition of new signage that went further to warn pregnant women, people with back and neck disorders and other medical conditions not to ride the roller coaster, David Durkee, an engineer for the county building department, said.

Both Clark County and the city of Las Vegas have been applauded by industry experts and consumer advocates for regulatory codes adopted in 1991.

The Stratosphere, for its part, has had no reported accidents at its two existing thrill rides in five years of operation. And its proposed ride does not appear to incorporate the spins, loops and jerking corkscrews associated with the high-speed rides in California that may have played a role in the three women's deaths.

Monitoring standards

Clark County and Las Vegas code inspectors use design, manufacture, operation and maintenance standards set by the American Society of Testing and Materials to monitor coasters. ASTM is a national group with representatives from roller coaster manufacturers, safety engineers, regulatory agencies, amusement parks and others.

But even here, where strict regulations can add as much as $250,000 to construction costs of a major amusement ride, no standards have been adopted yet to put a cap on allowed levels of gravitational forces in conjunction with sharp shifts in lateral direction. There is no medical research to provide guidelines, only anecdotal incidents. No one can answer for certain Congressman Markey's question of how much is too much.

O'Shanick, while hesitant to predict an outcome to the expected study by the Brain Injury Association, says objective research needs to be done.

"We want to look clinically and scientifically at the information that's out there and determine whether further information needs to be obtained," he said. "There's something going on, something different or unique in terms of these injuries and the vectors involved. It needs to be explored."

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