Ferris Wheel.... of DEATH!
 

I always imagine this happening when I'm on the sun wheel. I'm sorry it happened in real life.

Korea's doing well at maiming/killing off guests at carnivals this season.

How sadly tragic. I find it amazing that the 70 yr old managed to hang on though.

This sort of story is always chilling, especially as really no park is immune to such disasters. (Not even Disneyland, obviously.) The more basic and primitive the ride, the more I tend to feel antsy on it. Ferris Wheels always make me nervous. It's especially heartbreaking that a 7 year old boy was killed.

Wow, abgrrl, if you figure out an emergency escape procedure, let me know. The Sun Wheel certainly triggers my most pessimistic imaginings.

Capt Jack
hater of ferris wheels in all their forms

Ugh I will never, ever go on the sun wheel again or any other ferris wheel. I know this was a freak accident, but it gives me the willies to be just HANGING there up in the air.

Roller coasters, freefall drop rides, bring it on. I just can't handle dangling for LONG periods of time.

Um... If a car falls off Sun Wheel, you're falling close to 40 meters in an enclosed steel box, do you really think you're gonna have to worry about getting out in a few feet of water? :evil:

Seriously, though - Sun Wheel at DCA is a big tubular steel beast of a machine, there are redundancies upon redundancies designed into the closures of it's gondolas, and it's inspected (both X-ray and nondestructive particle testing of welds) more often than any bridge in the U.S. I'd put my money on a catastrophic failure of that horrible parking structure before any ride at DCA.

(I'm not kidding about being more afraid of the parking structure than any of the rides, either).

Up until the major refurb the Matterhorn was pretty hairy as far as the structure was concerned too.

I'm going to venture a guess that their standards for safety aren't what ours are.