There is no other thrill quite like it. Nothing that plummets you, hurtles you, twists you and turns you at the speeds and dizzying heights of the newest generation of roller coasters.
Amusement park engineers design the swings, flips and drops to create the illusion of risk. But as rides have become bigger, faster and scarier, doctors, regulators and lawyers are saying the danger isn’t imaginary.
Even as millions are flocking to parks, critics of the rides contend that thrill-seekers’ brains are being rattled around in their skulls, causing brain bleeds and tears that can result in permanent damage or death.
This autumn, New Jersey is expected to set the nation’s first legal limits on the gravitational force that amusement park rides can produce. Industry officials, too, are moving to set new standards, although they say many of the people who have suffered injuries so far had pre-existing health conditions, such as aneurysms.
Over the past several years, claims of brain injury from roller coasters have increased, according to policymakers and doctors.
Some who say they have been injured allege that the industry downplays the risk.
“At least when you are smoking, the cigarette [package] says you can get lung cancer,” said Zipora Jacob, 49, a former genetics researcher who settled a lawsuit with Disneyland after alleging she suffered a brain hemorrhage on the Indiana Jones Adventure ride.
“When I went on that ride, nobody told me that I could have a brain injury. People should know.”
Industry representatives accuse plaintiffs’ lawyers and regulators of hyping a small number of cases. They say roller coasters are safer than many forms of family entertainment, such as soccer.
“If someone can find an activity that 320 million people do each summer that has less incidents, I’d really like to see what it is,” said Gary Story, president of Six Flags Inc., which operates 38 amusement parks.
Doctors and regulators examining the rash of claims are focusing on G-force, or the force of gravity, on roller coasters. The G-force can be measured by direction: up and down, forward and backward, or left to right. Of concern is how long the forces last and how quickly and radically they change, and whether the ride jolts back and forth abruptly, or suddenly speeds up or slows down.
As the G-force increases, it becomes harder for the heart to pump blood to the brain.
Roller coaster enthusiasts’ Web sites show that the 10 fastest coasters have been built in the past eight years. The record holder, Dondonpa in Japan, opened in December and travels up to 106.9 m.p.h.
In 1994, roller coaster top speeds were 80 m.p.h. Records for height, drop and angle of descent also have been shattered in the last several years. This year, Magic Mountain in Southern California debuted X, a coaster whose cars can spin forward and backward 360 degrees. Combining speed and twisting tends to increase G-force, said ride engineer Steve Elliott.
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Doctors who have studied injured patients say coasters can pose a risk. In an article in Neurology in January 2000, neurologist Toshio Fukutake chronicled the case of a 24-year-old Japanese woman who developed headaches and subdural hematomas, or blood clots, after riding several large roller coasters at an amusement park in Japan.
“Riding giant roller coasters can cause chronic subdural hematoma even in a previously healthy woman,” Fukutake concluded. “Builders and designers, managers of amusement parks and potential passengers on giant roller coasters need to be aware of this risk.”
Meanwhile, two brain-injury researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Douglas Smith and David Meaney, have asked the industry to provide G-force data for the country’s biggest and fastest roller coasters.
They plan to use the numbers to determine the rate and extent of head movement on the rides and compare that to known injury thresholds for other kinds of accidents, such as car crashes. G-forces alone, Smith said, are not adequate for determining the potential for injury.