Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

Recently, a 4-year-old suffered a fractured skull when she plunged 14 feet while waiting in line for a ride at an amusement park. The young girl remains in the hospital with head injuries, broken ribs, and a brain bleed, and according to news sources, a health and safety inspector investigating the theme park accident is focusing on a fence panel that divides the line’s queue.
Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of the 4-year-old victim. The family would be well advised to consult an experienced theme park accident attorney to independently investigate the circumstances which lead to her serious injuries.

If you have ever visited a popular amusement park, the mix of fun also involves endless and painful waiting for a relatively short ride of pleasure. When you enter an amusement park, like any other business, the owners and operators of the park have a duty to provide a safe environment for their guests, which includes providing for your safety and security, ensuring all waiting areas are reasonably safe and free from hazards. Amusement and theme parks must take precautions to make sure that surfaces are not uneven, not slippery, properly lit, and that all ramps and stairs have handrails, guardrails, and are not too steep. Employees should be trained in safety maintenance and injury prevention.

Amusement parks and water parks are often the site of slip and falls, negligent security, and attacks and assaults. As an experienced Pennsylvania theme park accident attorney, unfortunately, each year we are consulted by children and their parents who have been injured, drowned, or been attacked or sexually assaulted at an amusement park. Many times, amusement and water park accidents are the result of improper staffing, improper training, inadequate maintenance, or lack of appropriate security safeguards. Amusement park accidents many times involve a combination of premises liability, product liability, and negligent security, and all claims must be independently investigated at the outset to avoid spoliation of evidence and to preserve information that may be extremely important to the successful prosecution of a legal claim. When amusement park owners and operators fail protect your safety, they must be held accountable.

The experienced amusement park attorneys of Reiff & Bily always offer a free, no obligation consultation to victims and their families injured in amusement park or water park accidents.

While the Consumer Protection Safety Commission estimates that the number of serious injuries on amusement park rides continue to increase dramatically, there are serious loopholes in the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1981 which prohibits the CPSC from regulating and enforcing the safety of all rides that are fixed to a specific site. Unfortunately, there is no official source which keeps a complete record of amusement park accidents. As an experienced amusement park accident attorney who has investigated and litigated some of the most horrific amusement park accidents that one can imagine, the one thing that I do understand is there is something fundamentally wrong with the checks and balances and safety protocol of the amusement park safety system as it currently exists in America.

Many times local and state regulators who currently oversee amusement parks lack effective budgets, resources, and technical expertise to carry out effective safety checks and investigate accidents. Our experiences reveal that when we conduct independent unbiased examinations and analysis of an amusement accident, the results are greatly at odds with the opinions of local regulators and authorities.

According to news sources, Lego Land in Florida reported six mishaps involving guests that occurred during its first two and a half months of operation but claim none of the instances appeared to have serious injuries. Believe it or not a Florida statute exempts Lego Land in Florida and many other major theme parks in Florida from regulation by the state bureau even though the attractions are required to submit quarterly incident reports. This exemption applies to theme parks of at least 1,000 employees and their own inspection staff. While many of the parks claim that safety is their number one concern and claim they have a duty to report any serious injuries or major incidents, the obvious question is begged as to what is a “serious incident".

I have always believed that one must stand for something or you will fall for anything. It is only when a horrific accident involving a catastrophic injury or wrongful death occurs at an amusement park that the victim or the family of the victim feels the true betrayal of an inefficient regulatory system.

Unfortunately, money, power, and greed of the amusement park industry often leads to unnecessary injuries and worse yet death.

As an experienced amusement park and carnival accident attorney, I believe that leaving the power of amusement park regulation to local and state agencies where the amusement park corporation is a major source of economic income to the community is analogous to the “fox guarding the hen house".

Amusement park safety is priority number one for the amusement park accident lawyers of Reiff and Bily. We believe that everyone deserves a safe amusement park governed by a uniform board of federal and national laws, and that cutting corners and not placing safety first is never an acceptable option.