Man hit by roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain
UPDATE: The 20-year-old man suffered major head trauma as a result of being struck by the roller coaster, according to Los Angeles County Fire officials. He remained in critical condition on Thursday afternoon, according to hospital officials.
A 20-year-old man was struck by a roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain over Labor Day weekend after scaling a pair of security fences to retrieve a lost hat.
According to park officials in Valencia, the man entered a restricted area of the Ninja suspended roller coaster on Saturday after losing his hat on the adjacent water flume ride.
Amusement park medical personnel, arriving on the accident scene within two minutes, found the man unconscious but breathing. He was transported by ambulance to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, where officials said he remains in critical condition.
“Ninja is surrounded by 6-foot and 7-foot fences that are clearly marked by signs stating the area is restricted to authorized personnel only,” Magic Mountain officials said in a statement. (Hat tip to Screamscape.)
The roller coaster, which reaches speeds of 55 mph, reopened after state inspectors determined that the accident was not ride-related, park officials said.
In June, a 17-year-old was decapitated by the Batman the Ride roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia after scaling a pair of security fences.
Find the latest amusement and theme park news at the
Los Angeles Times Funland blog: www.latimes.com/funland
— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times staff writer
[Photo: Six Flags Magic Mountain]
42 Comments on “Man hit by roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain”
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September 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
You disobey signs and scale fences, you get what you deserve.
What is sad is he will sue and get millions.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
It must have been some hat!
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Why is this in the travel section? Is this a recommendation?
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 pm
“You disobey signs and scale fences, you get what you deserve”
A 20-year-old disobeying signs and scaling fences in an effort to retrieve a lost hat deserves injuries leaving him in critical condition?
Your comment is much more idiotic than his youthful silliness. I leave aside its cruelty. Get a sense of proportion. Get a sense of compassion. In fact, get some sense.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I don’t blame him that was a Dallas Cowboys starter hat, those things cost like thirty-bucks yo!
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
“Your comment is much more idiotic than his youthful silliness.”
I scaled the fence into this discussion and his comment just hit me in the head! Augggghhh! Someone call an ambulance!
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
See a complete list of recent roller coaster accidents at Theme Park Insider.
— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times staff writer + theme park blogger
September 4th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Eh… stupid people doing stupid things… i have no problem with darwinian evolution getting rid of idiots in the gene pool. do we want these people reproducing?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Now I understand why they call it an amusement park. I see a Darwin Award in this guy’s future.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:45 am
To Peter:
Get some sense? Actions have consequences, and he deserved what happened to him. No one wants him to die, but he doesn’t really deserve compassion. He scaled two fences put there to keep him safe to get a hat. A hat. He’s an idiot. He deserved it.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I blame Tweetie Bird. He was there, he can fly, yet he didn’t help at all.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:39 am
A stupid person does a stupid thing and gets badly hurt - if he dies, it’s Darwin in action.
If the moron dies, overall human IQ goes up a tiny fraction.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Wow, didn’t this SAME thing happen at another Six Flags, were some DB lost his hat, climbed security fences, only to be decapitated… Come on, is your hat worth losing your head for?
September 4th, 2008 at 10:43 am
We’ve all heard the touching little the story about the little girl who threw a starfish back into the sea. When asked why, she said “Because I can save This one.” Well, we can’t save all the stupid people. We can save the ones who read. Darwin makes a good point.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
I am sorry, but I agree with what Fred says. How many articles like this have you seen in the paper? There have been a lot lately, does he not read the paper? If something has restricted area signs and you have to scale two fences to get in there something right there should tell you it is dangerous. Anyone with common Sense knows that you don’t wear a hat on a roller coaster anyways. Let this be a lesson people stop climbing under roller coasters. Also, it is true that his family sue for some stupid reason and get millions out of the park when it was not their fault. They did everything reasonable to keep their patrons safe he just chose to disobey.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:51 am
The ones I really feel sorry for is his family. It was a stupid thing to do. It just shows how people think instructions, i.e. stop sign, red light, keep out signs, is for everyone else but them.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I feel sorry for his family. It was a stupid thing to do. It just shows you how people think that they can do whatever they want instead of obeying laws and rules i.e. stop signs, red lights, do not enter signs… Really sad.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
“Stupid is, is Stupid Does”…Forest Gump
September 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
“The ones I really feel sorry for is his family.”
Why? For all you know his family could be glad to be rid of him.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
yeah, i mean, if it was just a hat, i mean, come on! it was only worth 10 bucks probably, not his life!
September 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
WOW!
This guys dumb. Did he even try to move out of the way?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I suppose this young man did not hear about the man at Six Flags in GA that was decapitated doing the exact same thing?! If I owned Six Flags I would electrify the double barbed wire fences. Maybe If the barb wire won’t deter the scalers then a little jolt would.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
haha wat an idiot
September 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
The really sad part is this guy or his family will probably make a fortune off his stupidity!
September 4th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I have no compassion or pity for this idiot. i work at an amusement park and i can tell you this- people check their brains at the door. people do the dumbest crap upon entering an amusement park. why? i don’t know why. but i see it everyday and it annoys the crap out of me!!!
September 4th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
With all the news of people getting hurt (i.e. decapitated) at six flags amusement parks after scaling fences, you’d think this fine American would’ve thought twice.
At lease Six Flags keeps on trucking. I hopped a fence at Disneyland and only got yelled at by a tram driver.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
YOU BUY ANOTHER HAT!!!!!!!! YOU DONT RISK YOUR LIFE!!!!
September 4th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
did anyone laugh when you found out the ride that nailed him from out of nowhere was called “Ninja?”
oh….. me neither *cough….*
September 5th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Survival of the fittest…if you are that stupid, you are not meant to live and reproduce your bad gene pool
September 5th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Does anyone know how I can contact the idiot who was injured? My lawers are trying to contact him so I can sue him. He caused my family much pain and frustration while they waited to board the rollercoaster.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:43 am
You can not protect idiots from themselves, bo matter how hard you try.
Nothing is “idiot proof”.
Like it never occurred to hime to ASK a worker to retrieve the hat? People loose stuff on those rides all the time!
September 5th, 2008 at 8:42 am
This is not the first incident at that specific theme park that this has happened. The last person died from it. The batman ride in Atlanta had an almost identical incident. Something needs to be said about the fences. Perhaps some barbed wire on the top of one or both of them would further prevent this from happening.
I am not blaming six flags here, human stupidity knows no bounds, but just trying to look out for them to halt an unwarranted lawsuit.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
“Perhaps some barbed wire on the top of one or both of them would further prevent this from happening.”
I was going to say this would look awful, but then again, it’s Six Flags. You’re already treated like a criminal before entering the park.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
matthew u need to shut up talkin bout tweetie bird!!!
September 8th, 2008 at 11:15 am
DJ: His family is probably responsible for teaching him that rules do not apply to them. Have you seen what parents will do in front of their children (half the time they encourage the kids to do as well!) They’ll never acknowledge that, of course.
Kalen: Okay, that was funny.
Tracey/Ed: Barbed wire? Seriously? Would you want to visit such a place? It was perfectly obvious that he was not to enter the area, if he makes that choice to do so anyway, the consequences are his to deal with.
I’m glad this is in the travel section, it’s a reminder not to turn into a complete idiot on vacation.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
you guys are heartless……
GET A LIFE
September 14th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I cannot believe some people have the nerve to write such things. This guy you call an “idiot” is my cousin, and he is someone who is very loved by his family. When I first read all the comments that YOU idiots put I felt so much anger running through my veins. Seriously, if something like this happened to any of you, you would feel the same way I feel right now. I just can’t believe some one would actually take time to read such a tragic story and write such a stupid comment. You people who wrote all these dumb comments have got some nerve, come on people have a heart! I really wish that no one ever goes through something like this because it’s one of the worst things ever. Now I know why my folks didn’t want to tell me about this. Seriously, some of you guys are the biggest jerks ever, but as far as jerks go I hope that none of you ever have to go through something like this.
September 18th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
what’s sad is how all you people can say stupid things without even thinking, kennia told me 2 days ago and she was DEVASTATED about her cousins condition. I looked online to read about the accident and saw all you idiots saying the dumbest things. I understand he did jump a fence that would obviously mean you shouldn’t jump over it, especially when it comes to a hat. But that doesn’t mean that it still isn’t a living person who has people who love him. It’s one thing to see things like this being done and happening and just criticizing them, but it’s definetly something else to be going through it. Do you for 1 second think what his family would feel if they see all you people leaving things like this?
If you don’t have anything good to say
then just don’t say anything to begin with…
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
what if there were no fences and it was only a three foot block that anyone could just slide over? what then? Maybe its the theme park making up a story about two fences, ever think they are just trying to control public opinion bg los angeles
December 31st, 2008 at 11:27 pm
…SORRY DUDE BUT YOUR COUSIN IS AN IDIOT! I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO DIE OR GET HURT BUT HE WAS STUPID THAT DAY! AND IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THAT HE WAS AN IDIOT OVER THE HAT, (OPINIONS)…DON’T!
April 9th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
this guy ended up dead.
April 26th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
the comments negative regarding a young person are sad - it shows all of us that compassion for fellow human beings is dwindling in this world….how very sad for you. I expect if you do something silly, impulsive and such, that you receive the same compassion. You need to look within…..you need to find a heart…this young person does not deserve to die or be seriously hurt because he made a mistake. shame on you!!!