Kansas City is a popular destination for fun-filled vacations for tourists of Missouri and Kansas residents alike. There are several amusement parks and water parks, including the popular CoCo Key Water Resort, Worlds of Fun, and the Schlitterbahn Waterpark (home to the world’s tallest waterslide). Unfortunately, what should be a fun getaway all too often ends in tragedy. When someone sustains an injury or wrongful death at an amusement park or water park, the Kansas City amusement park and premises liability accident lawyers at Fowler Pickert Eisenmenger Norfleet can help.
Roller Coasters and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
When you consider an amusement park injury, you most likely imagine a terrible catastrophe where the ride malfunctions or a cart runs off the tracks. While tragic accidents like these do happen, something doesn’t have to go wrong for passengers to sustain serious injuries. Many roller coasters are inherently dangerous even when they function correctly – especially for small children.
The head motions induced during a roller coaster ride may damage brain tissues, leading to mild TBI. Parents may not notice the aftereffects of a minor TBI for a few days after the injury; then, the child may suffer behavioral changes, problems sleeping, or other TBI indicators. Other types of rides also can aggravate or worsen prior health conditions unknown to the rider, such as bleeding in the brain. Whether or not a court can hold the park responsible for these injuries depends on the circumstances. If you or a loved one suffered a head injury at an amusement park, contact our Kansas City brain injury lawyers.
Negligence and Traumatic Accidents
Amusement park and water park patrons assume the rides are safe, that experts designed and tested them adequately, and that there is little-to-no risk of something going wrong. Yet humans make mistakes. When these mistakes result in a ride going terribly awry, causing injuries and fatalities, victims may have a personal injury claim. Negligence is the standard for these lawsuits, enabling victims to seek compensation for their amusement park injuries.
Recently, tragedy struck the Schlitterbahn Waterpark when a 10-year-old boy died while riding the 168-foot tall waterslide, Verrückt. Accidents like these are almost always preventable and often are the result of negligence. In this particular case, it appears the safety belt may have malfunctioned, or the park employee failed to evenly distribute the weight of the riders on the raft. Whatever the cause, it’s clear that someone made a deadly mistake.
Traumatic amusement park accidents often result from negligence. Manufacturers create defective parts, park employees fail to use proper safety procedures, or the ride has an inherent design flaw. These mistakes can result in life-threatening traumatic injuries, including:
- Spinal cord injuries
- Head and brain injuries
- TBI from blunt force trauma
- Neck trauma leading to stroke
- Crush injuries
- Fall injuries from ride ejection
Whether an employee, maintenance crew, engineering company, or parts manufacturer is responsible for the ride failure, victims of these catastrophic accidents have the right to sue.
