Disneyland Paris Tower of Terror Ride Leaves Boy, 12, Paralysed

Many amusement park rides seem excessively dangerous.

Agreed. I'm kind of surprised to hear this was a Disney park though. You'd think they would be more safety conscious because the potential for their global brand to suffer if the public believes they are unsafe. In other words, they have more to lose than some lesser known amusement park.

I went on that ride last summer.....I feel bad for the child...but I have no idea how that injury was caused....as seen in the video...it isnt that bad....

very odd.

My prayers also go out to the boy and his family.

That being said: in response to your comment about amusement parks being excessively dangerous, jameseg.

Anything physical (rides, sports, low-impact collisions) can be handled just fine by 99.999% of people 99.999% of the time and yet... there will always be that 0.001% that will be injured and/or killed. They fall wrong, they had a prior condition and/or injury that no one noticed and could have been there dormant for years that played right into whatever it was in order to create the worst-case-scenario, some critical failure managed to blow right through 10 fail-safes....

Now, don't get me wrong, that won't see me trusting my life to something like the Zipper, a ride which throws you against a cage-door with quite a bit more force than gravity several hundreds of feet up in the air with only a single metallic pin to hold that door closed but, that being said, it's certainly not going to keep me off of rides or out of amusement parks completely!

The truth is that most rides for most people at most places we find these days are actually quite safe (rules, laws and regulations for them are actually higher than most folks suspect) and, if you have any serious worry about it then go to one that you feel safe with (hence my Zipper Rule). My advice to those who are a bit leery? Go with the larger parks and fairs and always go with the older rides (Gravatron, Octopus, Tilt-a-Whirl, Sound Engine, Ferris Wheel, the Pirate....) because, in many cases, they have been used, in the "wild" for around 50 years, and, if those still don't seem safe to you- the benches on the Carousel are always open because, you are right- even that Carousel seat injure and/or kill a couple of folks a year because of that whole 99.999% being perfectly fine but that 0.001% not. And, the question when that 0.001% happens should first be, is that the fault of the staff in charge of maintenance, due to outside and unforeseen factors dealing with that particular person, some combination of the previous two or, because of the inherent danger of the ride itself?

Now, not to belittle that poor child and his family's pain but, you brought forth a premise that I think needs to be addressed concerning that incident because... Logically, scientifically speaking, we must address your premise of it being the ride itself and, quite obviously, this cannot be the case because, if you add up all of the Amusement Parks, Boardwalks, as well as State, County and local Fairs that provide rides just within our nation alone as well as all of those rides therein and all of the people who will ride them on any given day and evening… If there was indeed, a true danger to the majority of people for rides in general, as you have suggested, then, we should have death statistics at least approaching that of another "ride" complete with "variations" that is utilized daily by countless people like traffic accidents, wouldn't we?

And yet.

These kinds of injuries and deaths remain such an oddity that every single time one happens, it's across the globe in only a matter of moments, don't they? This, to me, puts it more in the category of Freak Accident rather than the expected results of playing with one's life. Which, actually, not only implies but actively points out the safety of those rides in general, doesn't it?

Now, I will agree that there is something to blame but, frankly, logic has already ruled out the ride itself so that just leave maintenance and this tragedy being due to outside and unforeseen factors dealing with that particular person- both of which could be likely at this point.

Chances are likely for maintenance to be honest. These days, most seats on the more modern rides are all-but equipped with their own ejection button. You are separated out, strapped down and locked in both individually and as a group.

Granted, a lot of these "measures" are for the most part psychological- and not because of the danger of the ride itself (the modern ones generally have almost more fail-safes then will most likely ever be seen by the general public) but, because, maybe, one day, eventually over a couple decades it might actually help somewhere but, in the meantime, it makes everyone feel safer. And, yes! That's why not only are you harnessed in with the nylon but also "caged" as well for some of those more modern and wild rides.

Still, this means that, if the maintenance and safety checks aren't performed properly on every seat of every ride… Something can, indeed, happen- most usually, it will happen to those who have been made "vulnerable" by outside and unforeseen factors dealing with a particular person that they aren't aware of, first. And, that brings us to those outside and unforeseen factors that a particular person is dealing with because, that is also a likelihood.

After all, anyone who has ever wrenched/sprained/broken their back/knee/ankle/elbow/finger/toe/whatever doing something that they have done a million times before has had the tiniest of palest tastes of those outside factors- but, thankfully! For the majority of us? It will never been nearly remotely as bad as what this poor boy and his family are experiencing now.

But, it is still there, within and around us every day. Sooner or later, Murphy's Law makes foolish and painful victims of us all to some degree or another at some point in our lives- that turn you make on the stairs to the call of your name makes your foot slip and you feel that wrench as your knee pulls out and the doc's are now talking surgery to get it working again- that knife you're cleaning while doing dishes slips at just the wrong moment and place to see you spending several hours in ER holding your injury with a rag while you await stitches- that turn you make at the car door to pick up your child to put them into the safety-seat jabs directly through your back with a white-hot dagger that sees you laying out on the floor and dialing the chiropractor….

Put those last two factors together? And yes, you have a recipe for a tragedy. So, really, our most likely candidate for blame is either maintenance, unknown health issues combined with bad luck or both. And, to be honest? My bet's probably on both but, no matter how you slice it, it just is not the ride in and of itself.

Yeah Right!

Long-Time Fair Ride Fan and Connoisseur (Who blames/thanks her older brothers for that distinction.)

And, again, my prayers go out to that boy and his family.