A theme park that used to be one American state's best attraction slipped into a pit of despair, bankrupted by lawsuits because of its lethal rides
Action Park in New Jersey would attract people from all over during the 1980s. People would enjoy the park and its impressive array of activities, which included a water park, long slides and go-karting.
But the 18-year spell from 1978 to 1996 was littered with a number of tragedies. Rides that would rip “people’s skin off” and cause people to need rescuing from treacherous water meant there were a number of incidents in the park’s short life.
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Action Park was an amusement and water park located in Vernon Township, New Jersey, United StatesIt even earned the nickname “Class Action Park” because of the number of lawsuits it inspired. Three teenagers died in the infamous Tidal Pool.
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Dubbed the “Grave Pool,” up to 30 people a day were rescued from the packed, eight-foot-deep freshwater pool which could hold 1,000 people as they struggled against the metre-high waves and suction, slamming into the sides and each other in a desperate bid to escape. But the first death was in 1980.
The car of an employee, aged just 19 came off the tracks and flung him into the air. This was on the Alpine Slide ride, a concrete track with poor breaks and no helmets.
The website rideaccidents.com said: “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 an embankment. He sustained a fatal head injury when his head struck a rock.”
On the Alpine Slide, there were a reported 14 fractures and 26 head injuries within the space of just 12 months. Tracey McLaughlin, who took a summer job at Action Park, told Metro that Alpine Slide was “very dangerous.”
“It was made of concrete and you sat on a plastic slide which had a hand brake as it could go really fast. There were no side rails so when people went down, they would go super-quick and sometimes go over the side or bump into the guys in front of them causing them to get thrown.”
There were a number of fatalities at the parkqThe worst of all the rides was arguably the Cannonball Loop, which only stayed open for a month before a safety board closed it down. The hellish loop caused one woman to get stuck, while riders would regularly lose teeth, hitting their heads so hard their teeth were left in the padded wall.
Meanwhile, the relatively tame Roaring Rapids caused fractured femurs, collar bones, noses and dislocated shoulder and knees. The bottom of a pool beneath the Diving Cliffs, meanwhile, was even painted white to make it easier to see the bodies, former employee Tom Fergus told Complex magazine.
Documentary maker Seth Porges, who visited the park as a child, said that the park was “unbelievably fun,” but that “Everyone knew Action Park had safety issues.”
He told the Metro: “That only made it more popular. Nobody is going to come back to school after a summer trip to Disney World and brag that they made it to the end of Pirates of the Caribbean. But so many Action Park rides were vehicles for bragging rights.”
Safety, it seems, was nowhere to be seen. The Tarzan Swing would plunge people into water so cold that they would go into shock when they reached the icy depths below. One person died from a heart attack.
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One rider, who was left in an ambulance twice, said: “The first time was broken ribs on the Tarzan Swing (my dad had to jump into the water to save me) and next was the alpine slide, when my car had no brakes and I flew over the side and into the grass. I then had to walk the whole way down crying and dripping blood.”
The same unfortunate rider said this meant they would simply use the kayak on a lazy river ride, but a 27-year-old man was once electrocuted in the water. He died and two of his family members were injured.
Park creator Eugene Mulvihill built the attraction in Vernon, a rural town in the Garden State. The park eventually closed down due to the financially draining nature of the lawsuits it faced. The park, now a lot safer, was re-opened in 2015 and is now known as Mountain Creek Waterpark.
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