The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 87 - Action Park!

Episode Date: June 10, 2015

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds discuss New Jersey's insane Action Park.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble MerchPatreon

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Hello you're listening to The Dullop this is the bi-weekly podcast that goes out internationally that is about the

country of America and its history. Each week I read a story to my friend Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is about good God was that that was an hour. Thank You Gary we'll be right back. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Steve okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to become a tickly podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hell queen shit of lies. Bill. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what? Frank. Hi Gary. No. Has he done my friend? No. Is there anything else? May 26th. Now see that one's bullshit. 1978. 1978. That date's got to be wrong. 1978. Action Park. One of the first water parks in

the United States of America opened in Vernon, New Jersey on the grounds of the Mountain Creek Ski Resort. Oh boy. This already I'm worried. The park was the brainchild of Great American Recreation. That's a company. Sure. They specialize in. What do they work at? They specialize in Great American Recreation. Oh that's a good, a very telling name. Yeah. In order to keep the turnstiles going in the summer the company began offering seasonal attractions. In 1977 an alpine slide was added to the mountain which allowed riders to fly down the snow-free slopes on sleds controlled by nothing more than

a handbrake. The ride was incredibly popular so park owners decided to expand the summer offerings the following year and Action Park was born. Okay. In 1979 additional slides appeared along with a deep water swimming pool and then a large wave pool. Love a good wave pool. Fuck yeah, bro. New attractions continue. New attractions continue to appear every summer in the 1980s when Great American Recreation was experimenting with slide design. It's a fun, fun experiment. Yep. I mean if I'm at like honestly could your life be better than like being like a slide tester? I mean you know. Come on. It's

like Tom Hanks and Big right there. It really is. Yeah that was real fun. This one's good. Let's do it again. It's a good one. I'm gonna need to slide down a few more times to give you my final evaluation. Hey no line. The worst thing about a water park is standing waiting in line while you're going. Oh yeah. You're freezing. Yeah. Yeah. And the piss. And the piss. Motor world was the other major attraction introduced later and built on unused land across route 94. Park guests could unleash their inner Mario Andretti on a go-kart track. Open wheel racers are tanks. I'm sure not real tanks. Okay because that's crazy.

Real tanks. That would be. I'd see where we were headed immediately in this. I could see. I could see a theme park doing that in Russia. Oh yeah. Just an actual tank. Come shoot bear with tank. Come shoot live bear with tank. Or shoot Ivan. Do whatever you like. He's drunk. I've been so drunk. The bears too shit face to get tank shot today. Bear drank too much. Also on the motor world side there was a brewery. Okay. So do a little math. Yeah. So we got the water park. Uh huh. We got live your dreams as a race car driver and drive tanks. Uh huh. Who knows what those are. Yeah. And then alcohol. Alcohol on that side. Alcohol on the side with the.

Oh alcohol right next to the car side. Right near the car side. All right. I mean why not. What could go wrong. Action Park was a pioneer in the micro brewery fad and got a brewer from Germany to come over and make beer. There you go. Sure. Sounds fine. Where are we? We're in New Jersey. New Jersey. Okay right. The park continued to grow over the years with approximately seventy seventy five different rides. At its peak the water park overshadowed the ski resort. Great American recreation promoted action park with simple but effective TV commercials. Show people having a great time. Jingles such as there's nothing in the world like action park. That's I mean how are you going to get that out of your head. And the action never stops at action

park. Oh wow. We have a park at action park. That's good. Yeah. There's water. It's a water park. There's drunk drivers across the street at action park. Get a tank. Get a tank. The ads were played endlessly on TV and radio stations in the eighties and nineties. The commercials for action park marketed as an essential summer experience for reckless youths. For reckless youths. Well it was very much like fucking go crazy. But they're advertising to reckless youths. They didn't even say reckless youth but the way it was you know. Come be reckless youth at action park. It was basically go fucking crazy at action park. Come have spray paint and shoot your friends at action park. Action park. What the fuck. Get drunk on moonshine fuck your girlfriend's

friend at action park. Oh my god. You're all going to die at action park. Attendance grew each year as the crowds enjoyed unique rides. If something looked like it might please the crowds great American recreation was not afraid to try it. It's not a good sign. And they kept pushing the envelope. The daring ride designs were poorly engineered and had little regard for safety. That's great. So I mean we're just headed towards some deaths. Underage teenage staff were often disinterested in enforcing safety guidelines and alcohol was distributed a bit too freely. It sounds like TSA with the airport security. That's what I thought you meant. Yeah. A little bit. Well because they just did a test this week. Yeah. OK. Ninety five ninety five. They failed ninety

five ninety five percent. So that's a deep five percent catching five percent of terrorists is good. That's good. It's mainly lotion terrorism. Yeah. Their base action park is basically the TSA of all right after action park open doctors in four counties reported summertime increases in ankle sprains broken bones bloody elbows and missing teeth. Despite the injuries little action was taken by state regulators. Action Park was a great advertisement for the state of New Jersey and a lot of people said most everyone was having a good time and nobody wanted to disrupt it. Well if you kind of think a little bit about the culture of Jersey like as it is now I'm sure that in this time it wasn't that different. And then you know this is a class of people who take pride in

being a little shittier. Right. I think he just got mad at you. The teen staff knew of all the ones who could get stoned and or drunk and hide from supervisors. It's great. Most were under trained and often on the under the influence. So they would drink while they were working. Great summer job. What a great gig. They cared very little for enforcing the enforcing the park rules and safety requirements. Height and weight based restrictions were often ignored. That's a problem. Action Park was fined by the state for letting underage employees run rides. Jesus. Jim to say was a security director for the park. He got the job at the age of 21. Wow. After having worked at the park for just two years. Wow. This is not good. What do you mean. That's not good.

It sounds fine. I don't even know where we're headed but I got a bad feel. I'm going to be a fucking eighties cop movie. I got a bad feeling about this. This is what this is what Jim had to say. A 21 year old guy in charge of security. Action Park was extreme before extreme existed. Extremely dumb. Numbers bars and beer stands scattered strategically around the park could keep one in an alcohol induced state of bravado practically all day. Combine that with a terrain which allowed for a lot of mischief to go unnoticed and you've got the makings for well a lot of action. Action Park attendees were affectionately referred to as gumbees because you bounced off the ground when you hit. I don't know anyone who grew up in Vernon in the seventies or eighties who

either didn't work or get injured there. Jesus Christ. Why were they called gumbees because they would help you get back up. They would just bounce off shit yeah. Oh Jesus. Needless to say. So you just have an enclosed park with just a ton of shit face people. Basically yeah and no one. And nobody gives a fuck and the securities run by a 21 year old who really is very funny you can tell from his. And the rides are shoddy and horribly put together. Yeah okay. Needless to say there were a lot of injuries at Action Park. Yeah. In 1986 the Herald reported the previous year's accident toll at Action Park. More than 110 including 45 head injuries and 10 fractures. Jesus. Those were just the reported injuries. There were many more. The park got into a lot of

trouble with the state for not reporting accidents. Sounds like accident park is a better name. That okay. Despite this Action Park unlike other amusement parks in the state at the time was fine just once between 1979 and 1986 for not following procedure. But the park was cited numerous times. The Herald said this was not the case for other amusement parks which would be fine for the first offense. So Action Park was getting special treatment. Yeah why is Action Park getting the fucking. Because it's Action Park. Because it's got such a catchy jingle. You want to shut down that jingle. You want to shut it down. Are people just to is it just become an institution at this point. Yeah I think and I also think it was it was a huge money maker. I think that it brought in a

lot of tax money and I think that yeah well like an advertisement like I said people not like Jersey has a lot of stuff that people like I want to go to that. Yeah except for the STD clinic. So many so many Bruce Springsteen listeners upset right now. Yeah. What made Action Park different from other amusement parks was the control that patrons had over their ride experience. Sorry that's not a good thing. I've never heard of anything quite like that. Really. That you are in control of the ride. Part of the thrill was the danger involved. People park officials would note over and over again were often responsible for their own injuries and park attendees tended to agree with them. Interviewed by the Herald in 1982 one person said he had more concerns about

driving on the Long Island Expressway to get to the park than about going on any of the rides. People continue to use the wave pool too. You know said a park attendee if somebody jumps in and can't swim that's their problem. What the fuck. What is what. It's really telling the difference in time. It's only like 30 some years but Jesus Christ on you. Also what it's the park's fault because you jump in and you can't swim. Why was you drowning. Hey stupid. Why was he drowning. Why don't you get out of the water then. Look you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Oh I can't swim get out of the wave pool. Oh I die because I don't know how to swim. You stupid idiot. What am I supposed to do. Life God doesn't mean that. Almost any ride

from the water slides to the doom buggies was capable of dealing some serious pain. Greg a schpunder said the river rapids ride was great under inflated and overloaded rafts would slam into walls and sharply angled concrete. I mean I'm sure that if I were to see it it would look a little more tame than what I'm picturing because I don't think so. Jack like they were supposed to. They're supposed to. So it's a it's a it's a river rapids ride. Yeah they put in like they made this cement on the side looks like jagged rocks. Jagged. Oh not thinking that people would bash their head into it. So it's just cement jagged rocks sticking out. Yeah cement jagged rocks are jagged rocks. On one of these turns my friend's mother as the raft literally

buckled in half like a taco flew into his knee and broke her nose. Oh jeez. Blood was pouring out all over and the lady supposedly watching for injuries looked like she couldn't give a shit. What do you want me to do. Hey it's not my knee right. Why did you get in the river if your nose is capable of breaking. Nice job stupid. You know I recommend you not hit your nose into his knees. Jesus Christ she's really bleeding in this river. Hey I'm just thinking of Springsteen right now. He was of course talking about a circular ride raft the Colorado River ride. It was a long and winding concrete trough fashioned to look like a natural river. Open in 1987 it was built as a family ride by Action Park but the trip was bumpy and sometimes violent. A group of riders

could share a raft down the Colorado which would throw riders against rocks and corners and at points descend into a tunnel protruding rocks with tag unsecured riders who could not see in the darkness. Okay so they're putting you down a tunnel that is dark with jagged rocks that you can't see. Yeah and this is a family ride? Yeah okay. For the kids. Concussions were common because there were no helmets available to guests. Well listen you shouldn't have a ride where helmets are what we're talking about and the like have you ever heard besides white water rafting do you know of any other thing and water polo when do you have to wear helmets in the fucking water. That's it I think. Yeah okay well there we go. You're not going away on your fucking vacation

looking to helmet up to go down like a lazy river. It's just amazing that anyone think you could put people into a dark tunnel with jagged rocks sticking out. Whose idea was it like there's no point in having both of those. Great American recreation. There's no point in having like if you're gonna have jagged rocks put some light on it if you're if you're gonna have a dark don't do anything. Or maybe just have a pussy ride. What about that where people just go down and bounce into sponges. Yeah yeah the sponge ride. This is some fucking real Jersey shit right here bro. Park officials were always quick to point out that the park had over a million visitors each year which made the actual injury rate statistically small. Of course those are the reported injuries

enough injuries occurred that Action Park actually bought the town of Vernon a new ambulance or new ambulances to keep up with the injury volume. I'm sorry wait they had to buy more ambulances because of Action Park. The park purchased the ambulances for the town because there were so many injuries. That is an amazing gift. That is like that's like buying bandages for the anniversary to the wife that you beat. Here you go honey. I know you're always bleeding yeah because you hit me oh shut up don't chase it back too far. It's amazing that they weren't like why don't you stop the thing that causes the people to get into the ambulances. No no no let's deal with the symptom not the disease baby. This isn't pussy park Joe. Yeah in 1987 the Herald also spoke to

spoke with doc the director of the yard and nearby hospital who said five to ten people were brought there daily from the park. Well I mean that is shocking. Injuries included ankle sprains cuts and contusions and broken bones with injuries most often occurring from slipping and swimming pools or cuts from water slides. He also noted that many of the injured came to the yard with alcohol on their breath. Maybe they should just open Action Park in a hospital. They you know at some slides they at some water parks you get like a thing to slide on like a you know when you go into the tube yeah this was just old school and yeah just you would get like raw fiber glass they would just get burns and like everyone well you know the thing about fiber glasses that pain

doesn't stay with you for long. It doesn't feel like invisible needles living inside your skin for weeks. Also due to the alcohol consumption there were many brawls between men in bathing suits which led to more trips to the emergency room. Oh god honestly like I knew it was coming but now the visualization of this place is terrible. Oh yeah now it's all together. Hey fuck you Tony no fuck you Tony. Now it's like no fuck you hey Tony this guy's telling me to fuck off. Now what you say Tony? Like the ride now is getting out of the park okay that's the ride like that's the adrenaline ride now. One of the most famous rides at Action Park was the Alpine slide concept was simple you sat on a sled and descended down concrete tracks using a handbrake you control

your speed either slowly or at a speed described by a former park employee as death awaits. If you lost control of your cart on the Alpine slide it would simply crash through the hay bale barriers and then you would enjoy falling down a hillside onto nasty rocks. What? If you went too slowly on the ride the person behind you would ram into you there was a slow lane and a fast lane no helmets and the brakes did not function. Well it sounds like they need helmets. They need a lot of helmets in this place you should hand you a helmet when you walk in the door. I'm kind of picturing what so it's kind of like bobsledding a little bit right? Yeah I mean it's like it's like except you have no training. It's like a cart but it's on cement and so you're on cement and you

don't have helmets yeah and then there's just hay that's already not good to keep you from going through but you would just fly through the hay bale and then roll down this hill of rocks. Well the hay is a nice feature. It is a nice feature. It's probably nice to remember that when you remember the good times before the rocks. Park EMTs would just stand at the bottom of the Alpine slide waiting for someone to need their assistance. Wow I mean that's fucked up that's that's so amazing that they just stationed them there instead of fixing it. How is that yeah I mean seriously right yeah like the amount of money they're paying they're like what's a solution here I don't know let's put some EMTs at the bottom of this thing huh. I don't know get the sick out

of here fast. They knew that it was just a matter of when and not if some poor kid would get banged up and bloodied. Kid how is I mean so there's really so they're not enforcing the age and height requirements or the weight requirements yeah there's no helmets there's no control right they're not even spacing these people apart no the only thing they seem to have a handle on is getting people to the hospital. That's what they're on top of. Action Park goer Allison Becker said one thing that would catch your attention was the first aid cart kind of like a golf cart piloted by two zitty teens wearing oversized EMT shirts the cart would inevitably be seen looping through the trails grass and little forest that surrounded the park but when you saw it you wouldn't

see a kid with a scraped knee you'd see a guy holding a blood-soaked towel on a huge head wound oh my god you'd see a gash the size of a big gulp on someone's leg blood blood blood all I remember was blood. Also real quick it is great that this person the only thing they can relate a huge gash to is a big gulp they're like you know a gash this I mean there's so many things you can say there instead they're like you know a gash the size of the biggest soda you've ever seen like a 64 ounce bucket of sodas what I'm talking about you know it had like uh you got to cut the size of the base of a 40 ounce. Jesus Christ. The Alpine Slide was responsible for Action Park's first death. Whoa. That of a 19 year old park employee in 1980 a malfunction

caused a wheeled sled to derail from its cement track after it failed to properly negotiate a curve the victim was thrown from the car down in an embankment he sustained a fatal head injury when his head struck a rock why are rocks like it's a water park there's rocks yeah exactly don't when you go to water parks aren't there a lot of rocks yeah but you're not riding it well first of all no and second of all they're I mean the fact that they're like yeah they're creating jagged rocks but then they also won't get rid of rocks right I mean just get rid of the rocks well it's hard it's not hard no you gotta pick it probably take like a week gotta move them yeah I know that's what I'm saying it'll probably take about a week yeah but no at least you had

nothing else to say after that just for the record at least 14 fractures and 26 head injuries caused by the slide were reported between 1984 and 1985 that's just one year yeah and yet the Alpine Slide was called the park's most popular ride in the 1986 New Jersey Herald article one that a park official declared quote the safest ride there is noting that a 90 year old grandmother and mothers with babies on their laps have taken a ride on it I mean I mean what is he lying or just an asshole okay the same article said that the slide was responsible for more accidents the majority of lawsuits and 40 percent of citations against the park I mean get out of this relationship action park the title pool was called the grave pool by employees I it was a huge freshwater pool

100 by 250 feet long and 8 feet deep that could hold up to a thousand people a thousand people yeah four large fans forced air into the pool and created waves which could reach a height of 40 inches a thousand people so so that's what almost four feet yeah that's just a little odd a little bit the waves were generated for 20 minutes at a time with 10 minute breaks in between 10 minute where you could get the dead out of there oh god scrape out the dead just scrape the dead out a big problem with the pool was that many of its users were not good swimmers action park attracts many people from urban areas who have few chances to swim and frequently must be rescued from the water said Wong Park official so they don't have a chance to swim much so they decide they'll go into the

craziest conditions possible to learn because they look at it and they don't think it's that deep and then they get in it and they're overwhelmed well because it seems like action park isn't loose with the info so they do not they don't really tell you much they don't they don't tell people anything yeah no they're like cigarettes they're like you know they're at the point now where they're like well we don't see any connection he said they don't know how to swim and they jump right into the water even good swimmers would forget that the freshwater waves were not buoyant like waves in the ocean so they would have to work harder to stay afloat crowded swimming conditions meant that people would bash into each other the sides of the pool or ladders as they tried to get out

of the water while the waves were on some people would simply sink to the bottom seemingly unaware that the pools depth drop down a level as you move from one end to the other lifeguards at the tidal wave pool often would save 30 people a day oh my god whereas your average lifeguard at a pool or lake might rescue one or two people in an entire summer well there's the action is being the life guard i mean i'm really just picturing that and it just it's it sounds very awful and graphic yeah like he i mean i just imagined it's insane it's like when you go to a concert you know and like people are getting a little rowdy and you're like oh it's not a good area now put that in water an element that you have less control of than land two people drowned in the grave pool a 15

year old boy in 1982 and an 18 year old man in 1987 uh many more came close despite the fact that 12 red cross certified lifeguards were stationed at the pool at all times oh my god the cog ride allowed people to paddle tiny boats through white water it used submerged electric fans to agitate the water above okay often the kayaks got stuck or tipped over and people had to get out of them to remedy the situation the ride was not very popular in the summer of 1982 a 27 year old man from Long Island got out of his kayak and while he was trying to get back in he stepped near an exposed wire that was under the water oh god he was taken to a hospital in new york state where he was pronounced dead what two of his family members were also electrocuted but live electrocuted park officials

denied that he was electrocuted what but the coroner's report proved the man died from cardiac arrest due to electrical shock uh action park was quick to point out that the victim didn't have any burns what is that what is the point of that the coroner said you don't have burns when you're in the water like that when you're wet you're a dead ringer for a good electrical shock i mean a wiring defect described as either a nick or a seven inch gash depending on whose account you know a nick or a big gulp no it's just a nick right it's a seven inch nick yeah but a nick you know it's like a 20 ounce Pepsi anyway that was the that was the cause of the electrocution he uh the ride was drained for investigation and never open again because as a park official told

the new jersey herald at the time people will always be intimidated by it now oh poor action park there was the cannonball loop uh not a not was this where you just shoot cannonballs at people in 1985 the great american recreation executive who founded the park eugene mulville drove up plans on a napkin during lunch hey that's how you want to draw him up that's the best safety safety first have a couple manhattan's and then figure out your park hey what if there's something that goes like this huh that's just a swirl buddy yeah yeah anyway i can write this lunch off now officially it was a radical new water slide design it was a large slide you had to climb a tall wooden ladder to get to at the end it had a complete vertical loop like one would commonly

find on a roller coaster okay so it just goes around oh shit up and around uh so it it's like those skateboard ramps for you it's like an oh in the air it's like an oh in a in a water now think about what the water doesn't know uh i honestly can't i mean my guess is that it doesn't make it to the top of the oh my guess is there's a if someone drew that on a napkin i'd be like right but the water can't do that yeah i see i'd be like man this sounds great i can do this i'll go first employees said they were given a hundred dollar bills to test it uh a writer was reported to have gotten stuck this should be called jackass the park i mean hey you're gonna do the loop no i'm putting a little toy car up my ass okay uh a writer was reported to have gotten stuck at the

top of the loop due to insufficient water pressure and a hatch had to be built at the bottom of the slope to allow for future extractions debris how big this is a huge loop it's it's it's not a huge loop it's big but it's big but it's not huge it's and so people are just getting trapped at the top of the loop yeah and they had to make a hatch so that they could remove these people yeah let me see if i can find it um it it uh it's it's not it's not a gigantic thing it's a it's a small loop um that well i'll just cut this part out okay action park okay so there okay that's kind of what i was picturing so it's the loop is kind of small at the bottom

and it's really high up the where you start yeah and then you come out and you and you're either dead or alive yeah it definitely it definitely looks like i can understand why on a napkin you like what you see in reality it's a little concerning it's definitely a napkin design it's a very sharp it's a very sharp upturn too it yeah it's not like you're just cruising for a little while um debris and rocks would collect at the bottom of the loop creating a sandpaper like surface now that makes sense right because it's a loop so obviously that stuff can't just wash out because it can't get up yeah so it just stays at the bottom i'm still sort of troubled by the fact that there's a salt uh like a sandpaper part of this ride yeah that's the nice part the strange

part uh those who dared make the plunge suffered terrible cases of slide rash uh the cannibal loop was only open for a month that i mean i honestly an action park time it's like an hour it really is yeah uh that was in 1985 before the state's advisory board on carnival amusement ride safety ordered it closed due to mounting injuries i mean think about like think about there being a carnival safety board yeah having to say no i mean if you've ever been to a carnival yeah i mean it's everything it's very unsafe everything goes yeah one worker told a local newspaper that quote there were too many bloody noses and back injuries from the ride oh god Chris Gethardt had this to say about a ride uh when i was on this cannonball falls slide and

this is the cannonball loop this is cannonball falls right i was at the top of a hill it seemed normal there was no warning that halfway down the ride i would be shot into a pitch black tube this was incredibly daunting it became even worse when the tube opened backed up only would it emerge sticking out from the face of a cliff this slide sent unsuspecting riders shooting out of a cliff face some two stories above the water two stories two stories with absolutely no warning it was just high enough that you had time to think and panic about your situation rider after rider myself included would scream in terror before hitting the surface of the slimy green water with a sickening slap after this the victims of the ride

would gather at the edge of the pool to watch others suffer the same fate it was like all the victims of a car wreck gathering a dead man's curve to watch the next car smash into the median it sounds like fugitive the ride two store two stories is a tremendous drop yes to not tell anybody yes the tarzan swing led to the third death at action park uh i mean that's a really it's really crazy that a statement like that is almost going unnoticed to me at this point this was a steel arch hanging from a 20 foot long cable over a spring fed pool okay okay so it's a pool that spring fred spring fed spring yeah so it's it's not warm okay patrons waited in long lines for

the chance to hang from it swing out over the water and then jump off as the beam reached its height the pool was surrounded by new jersey natives who would scream obscenities at those hanging from the beam so what are you telling you piece of fucking shit so wait what are we looking at exactly it's like is it just a swing okay it's a beam right okay it's like an arching beam that swings out it's oh i get you and when it gets like at its height then you do you leap so it's like a two by four you jump off of essentially when you are at your peak height it's a good idea okay some people by the way it's a terrible idea it's a terrific idea some people hung on uh too long and scraped their toes on the concrete on the far side so if you went all the way across you would get hurt right

with these rides are putting way too much on the people well i would think if you're making a ride and there's a swinging thing on the other end of the swinging thing you would make it so people wouldn't hit something yeah like pads others and you'd also tell people things others used the ride properly but we're then surprised to find out the water underneath was very cold it was cold enough in fact that lifeguards sometimes had to rescue people who were so surprised by the sudden chill that they could not swim out of the pool i don't understand the why cold look there's a lot of red flags here but cold water well i mean well there's a natural spring there so just your action park the cell here is not the cell here is not that you can bottle water at your pool the cell here is

that you'll get in the water and maybe leave without going to the hospital maybe you don't like nature maybe i do like nature action park is not an extension of nature cold water can shock the muscles preventing basic motor functionality like swimming in the most extreme cases cold water shot can cause cardiac arrest and that's exactly what happened to a man who died in the pool in 1984 everybody's dying at action park if this like if you just took this dial and and just a couple tics this is a horror film everybody's dying and action park hey come on down this weekend bring your family you're all gonna die down at action park fifty percent of you'll make it back all right by the mid 1980s the park had developed a reputation for its unsafe ride why rumors swirled of cut corners

with maintenance and safety enforcement i won't hear of it people still came by the droves of course because we're fucking morons it wasn't just about the water there was the aerodium the first and only of its kind in the world the i'm also gonna guess the last the german design aerodium made its international debut at action park in 1987 it was basically a first generation vertical wind tunnel it could reach updraft speeds approaching 100 miles an hour party goers would wear special skydiving suit oh skydive over an air column powered by a 650 horsepower fan but this is actually still a thing i'm sure it's far safer now flights were less than a minute long and limited to a maximum of six or seven feet above the ground there was stadium seating all around the outside

which allowed family members and friends to watch you get hurt the aerodium led to broken legs and arms and shoulder and wrist dislocations oh god one rider instinctive instinctively tried to break his fall by extending his arm which caused his shoulder dislocation severed nerves and near permanent paralysis of the arm okay so yes they do it now but they slowly reduce the speed no and they just cut off the fan and i mean i've been in them there's like a tremendous amount of padding there's like a professional there's gonna like help you in and out yeah there's not it's not just like yo jump into the fan unplug it get out you'll plug it back in get in there roll them out unplug it get out of course the tidal pool was the most dangerous as far as fatalities were concerned

of course a 20 year old from brooklyn drowned the pool in 1984 then an 18 year old in 1987 that brought the grave pool's death count to three and the park's death count to six in seven years after the 1987 drowning the new jersey herald reported that the tidal pool was not classified as a ride but as a pool by the state under state regulations at the time that meant that the company merely had to keep the water clean and make sure that certified lifeguards were on duty i don't even think they did that but keep going eventually the park just started killing people or on their way to enjoy a day of fun like a crazy steven king novel yeah on july 26 1992 six were killed and 47 injured when a bus traveling to action park overturned and burst into flames i don't and that

is terrible but it's a steven king novel at this point but it and it also might just be a blessing in disguise for one person on that bus i mean at this fucking rate would you go somewhere where someone was dying every year no no of course there were endless lawsuits and settlements they eventually caught up with action park by the 1990s americans were spending less uh on insurance and insurance premiums were suffocating the business years of negative headlines finally eroded the park's traffic the most dangerous rise disappeared closed as part of legal settlements or an inability to obtain insurance coverage great american recreation as its legal troubles was suggest was accused of cutting corners to maximize profits for example it was accused

of building rides cheaply sporadically maintaining many of them and failing to renovate rides to take advantage of later safety improvements to its ideas made by other facilities in the parks last year it kept part of the ski area open despite being unable to obtain liability insurance well what the fuck do they care at this point i mean it's basically sea world for humans so what the fuck do they care hey welcome blackfish what hey hey get in the tank you live here now what great american recreation was forced into bankruptcy in 1995 but action park would quietly limp along for another year when action parks 1996 season ended on labor day everyone expected it to reopen on memorial day weekend the following year but when the spring of 1997 rolled around

the park did not reopen the park remained closed for weeks before officials would make an announcement it wasn't until july of 1987 great american recreation officially announced the park's closure but like michael myers from movie halloween oh god this water park won't die no less than die less than a year later the property was sold to a canadian destination resort developer the company renovated the grounds and reopened it promptly in 1998 as mountain creek water park mountain creek announced their opening with the slogan action park is back but the new company was much more responsible the alpine slide and motor world was shut down most of the closed action park rides were replaced were replaced with newer safer water slides the

water park did reasonably well as it neared the year 2000 but then attendance began to drop again by 2008 the owners were looking to sell which they did in 2010 the park was sold to an investor group led by a man named eugene a mole the hill eugene was the former great american recreation executive who originally founded action park in the 1970 all right good great we want all the thrills and none of the spills says andrew mohill co of mountain creek which owns the facility when we surveyed people they knew the action park name better than mountain creek he says we decided to take the plunge and re-embrace the name the new action park has old favorite attractions plus the zero g ride a hundred foot looping water slide reminiscent of

action park's famous cannonball loop which mole the hill's late father is designed on the napkin the new loop was built by a renowned waterslide designer don't you think you should tell this way you should tell people before they get on that ride this ride was designed on a napkin want to go yeah go ahead buddy what about you no all right there's the emergency hatch get the fuck out the also around one of the turns it's going to feel like 90 cats are licking your ass the world is a different place said president bill brennian the new rides we're building are meticulously engineered uh-huh yeah park is back no it's not oh it's back baby it is back enjoy that action park i uh it's actually the canadian years remind me of when dick enberg

took over snl from lauren michael's for a little while just a different vibe not as and you know what i mean it just had to go back to its dangerous roots it's all good and there's no doubt when we ask vicki about action park oh she'll know she'll be like i loved action park haha shout out to vicki pezza on the ones and twos oh girl all right thank you thank me