Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers - carriage collision

Xordium said:
If I had of been there then I would have concluded immediately that there were more casualties than me by myself - therefore I needed assistance, that I couldn't actually get to those casualties myself without incurring potential danger to myself - therefore I needed specialist assistance. That takes less than a second to come to the conclusion.
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It took the ambulance service 6 mins to come to that conclusion. It took 10 mins for the park to dial 999 but in that time first aiders on site had to get to the ride and make sure it was safe for them to enter to start assessing the situation. If the initial assessment had taken longer maybe someone would have realised to request the fire service also during the initial 999 call.
 
thenewoc said:
It took the ambulance service 6 mins to come to that conclusion. It took 10 mins for the park to dial 999 but in that time first aiders on site had to get to the ride and make sure it was safe for them to enter to start assessing the situation. If the initial assessment had taken longer maybe someone would have realised to request the fire service also during the initial 999 call.
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Your first job is to ensure that there are no more casualties therefore that should have been the first action. There should be a major-incident plan in place that should account for such things. It is immediately obvious that machinery is involved and the casualties were not accessible without compromising the rescuers safety.
 
Just read that although it says the smiler will be closed for the foreseeable future but Saw at Thorpe park will be closed indefinitely.

They must have found some pretty bad issues. Both were built by Gerstlauer
 
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Xordium said:
Your first job is to ensure that there are no more casualties therefore that should have been the first action. There should be a major-incident plan in place that should account for such things. It is immediately obvious that machinery is involved and the casualties were not accessible without compromising the rescuers safety.
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I think the initial issue lies with the emergency service call being triaged, it should have included some questioning on how accessible the patients were and that should have triggered the fire service also being sent along with the ambulances. It took around 30 mins for the ambulance crews to be onsite so is there not an ambulance station closer than 30 mins away?
 
thenewoc said:
I think the initial issue lies with the emergency service call being triaged, it should have included some questioning on how accessible the patients were and that should have triggered the fire service also being sent along with the ambulances. It took around 30 mins for the ambulance crews to be onsite so is there not an ambulance station closer than 30 mins away?
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The nearest town is Uttoxeter which is about 9 or 10 miles away, down reasonably narrow and twisty B roads. IIRC, Uttoxeter doesn't have a hospital so a major incident is going to need cover from Stoke-on-Trent or Derby (though that will be a different NHS ambulance trust). There is a fire station though.
 
Sounds like a possible componant failure to me, what's the chances all 4 of those rides use the same part for something?
 
Nick Varney
Whilst the investigation into the causes is continuing, we have identified a series of additional safety protocols that we are implementing immediately across our multi-car rollercoasters.
Source: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/a...ington-also-shut-rollercoasters-10299811.html

Could be something as 'simple' as identifying multi-car coasters without cameras covering each element, for example. It's just a matter of waiting, I'm sure it'll all come out...
 
tom_e said:
999 should have been the first response by the ride operators, getting on to the internal comms system whatever that may be and calling the in park first responders should have been secondary. Although lets face it they have enough staff on that ride for them to be doing both at the same time so there should have been no delay in alerting the emergency services or the in park staff.
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That's not always the correct procedure, especially for large companies or large sites where there will be trained responders on site. And in this case an ambulance isn't much good as they will be unable to get to those injured and so a platform needed to be built first.
 
2StepSteve said:
Seems to point away from it being human error.
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I hope so, would hate the blame to land on some minimum waged ride operator likely in their teenage years or early 20's and potentially ruin the rest of their existence as well.

Of course you need to take responsibility in every job you have regardless of status or salary but human error happens and in this case I hope it wasn't that.
 
Ayahuasca said:
I hope so, would hate the blame to land on some minimum waged ride operator likely in their teenage years or early 20's and potentially ruin the rest of their existence as well.

Of course you need to take responsibility in every job you have regardless of status or salary but human error happens and in this case I hope it wasn't that.
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We were there last Friday and I did notice a lot of the staff were quite young. Around the 20 mark possibly although I lost the ability to judge a persons age after I went past 40.

They were very professional when questioning whether our 2 year old could go on some rides. He was right on the 90cm line and got measured on every ride he could go on till we got the band for his wrist that meant he was okay at a glance. What surprised me more was its half term and the park was very quiet. Groups of schoolkids but most rides including the big ones you didnt have to queue for more than 10-15 mins. The log flume for instance had no queue whatsoever and the rapids was quiet too.
 
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