Carnival Ride Operator Pulls Unsafe Stunt

This ride is an old-clunker "Tip-Top" roundabout ride which was manufactured by Frank Hrubetz & Co., Inc, which is now Dartron and this ride is no longer made. It appears to be at least 40 years old. A similar ride is known as the Custer Bubble Bounce. This ride has your Massachusetts required parts; the deadman pedal, e-stops, perimeter fencing, etc. This carnival is a shady outfit, they have a petting zoo which raises animal welfare issues, and junky amusement rides. I saw one ride that was covered in Duct Tape, which is a red flag on unsafe rides. Massachusetts supposedly cracked down on amusement operators after 2 separate accidents in 2004 left 2 individuals with disabilities dead. One was a man diagnosed with cerebral palsy was killed on a fixed-site roller coaster and the other was a man with a developmental disability was killed on a portable sizzler and the carnival operator went to jail because they had used the wrong size bolts when assembling the ride. In this video, the operator is not paying full attention to the ride's operation and then at 02:23 he leaves the safety of the control stand and then jumps on to the rotating platform WHILE IT IS STILL IN MOTION at a good rate of speed. This operator could have been very easily seriously injured or killed. Ride accidents don't just involve riders but operators and bystanders as well.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Amusement
• Ride
• Operator
• Pulls
• Unsafe
• Stunt
• OSHA
• NIOSH
• West
• Springfield
• Massachusetts
• Worker
• Safety
• Employee
• Training
• Operational
• Procedures
• Heavy
• Equipment
• Moving
• Parts
• Frank
• Hrubetz
• Tip
• Top
• Accident
• Waiting
• To
• Happen

[carnivalwrkr2005]

When I worked at a major amusement park in Western Mass, the safety department would do unannounced audits of ride operators and when I worked with the ride ops, I knew they were being audited but I never alerted them because I would get fired. The auditors would hide behind a bush or behind a corner to avoid being noticed. There have been some ride accidents in Mass back in 2004 and that led to a crackdown on amusement ride safety here in the Commonwealth.

[carnivalwrkr2005]

I edited the video info to better clarify and describe the video and I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

[twistedsouls2009]

as a former ride operator I agree you should never leave the control panel untill the ride comes to a complete stop.

[EvolutionRider88]

Same here. When I was a ride op, we had the dead man's pedal installed at every ride I worked on to prevent incidents like the one you saw in the video.

[NatureNutcc]

I didn't see the big deal until I thought wow kids are watching this big guy and are going to want to do that too, so mommy in me didn't like it, but then single types wouldn't care much as he was only putting himself in danger. I could go anyway on this video.

[Screamingcgull]

3 minutes of my life wasted watching this video.

[munkfunk123]

tut what a waste of time, as long as there is someone around incase someone jumped onto the control and decided to switch the ride back on i dont see a problem.

[Killimanjaro741]

haters gonna hate.

[tristeng5]

wow.. i feel like some ones very protective mother made this video

[cfeirl]

he turned the ride off then got on it waiting for it to stop to get the people out

[ryanfozz1]

Woodpile doo. Big deal. Not!!!

[tsidow2008]

@twistedsouls2009 i agree ca;ifornia dosh would of had his head on a stick

[jnrivers]

Oh brother.

[rollercoastersrock]

Question, is a dead man's pedal the same thing as a presence pedal? I'm not quite sure because I've never operated a flat ride.