Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 70: Amusement Park Horrors: Dark Summer Series

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

As we begin our Dark Summer Series, We're investigating three stories of deadly amusement park rides. TW: child death, minor descriptions of gore Be sure to subscribe to Heart Starts Pounding on Youtube! This episode is sponsored by Miracle Made. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to TryMiracle.com/HSP and use the code HSP to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. This episode is also sponsored by Hero Bread. Keep the carbs out of summer without compromising flavor with Hero Bread. Get 10% off your order at hero.co and use code HSP at checkout.   Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to ad-free listening and bonus content. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to ad-free episodes and bonus episodes when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. We have a newsletter now! Be sure to sign up for updates and more.

On August 7th, 2016, two girls in swimsuits stood at the bottom of the largest water coaster in the world. They had just finished riding the 18-second ride and were coming down from the adrenaline rush of it all. It was probably one of the most thrilling experiences of the young girls' lives up until that point. But they couldn't help but feel that there was something wrong with the ride. When they strapped themselves into the flume at the start of the ride,

they were surprised to find that the only safety mechanism holding them to their seat was a seat belt like they had in their cars. As they were waiting for the ride to be released, they had both been able to easily take off their seat belts when the attendant checked to make sure they were safely secured. Surely the tallest slide in the world should have better safety measures. Just then, they heard a scream come from behind them. Back in the direction of the slide, they looked at each other, both with the same sinking feeling. Soon everyone around them was screaming, like a chorus. Coming down the slide was a flume with an empty seat at the front, the belt unbuckled.

The two other women in the flume stared at the empty seat in both shock and horror. One of the girls grabbed the other's arm, eyes wide and fixed on the slope above the flume. Blood was trickling down the slide. And that's when they heard someone scream for an ambulance. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Kailin Moore.

I would like to officially welcome you to the kickoff of our summer series, Dark Summer. Over the next several weeks while you're enjoying your time at the beach, taking a summertime camping trip, and maybe even going to a local theme park, here at Heart Starts Pounding I'm going to be telling you the darkness, the danger, and even the ghosts that lurk beneath the waves. We'll be discussing haunted resorts, summary urban legends, and the truth behind them, terrifying camping encounters, and more. So definitely stick around because you're not going to want to miss it. Today, I'm going to tell you three stories. One is about a disaster that happened at the Schlitterbahn water park. Another is about one of history's worst roller coaster accidents.

And the last is about a haunted house ride gone wrong at one of the most famous theme parks in the country. And because what we're talking about today is quite sensitive and does involve children in some stories, listener discretion is advised. But before we jump in, I want to say I do get asked a lot about merch and we're working on some things. But first up, we're adding merch rewards for Patreon subscribers. Members of the Rogue Detecting Society will get a free Rogue Detecting Society sticker and High Council Members at the higher tier will also get a free Rogue Detecting Society mug after 3 months of being subscribed.

So if you were looking for another reason to join, there you go. Check out the link in the bio for more info. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to let Dark Summer begin. This episode is brought to you by Miracle Maid. It's getting hot out there. I'm currently in Texas and it is hotter than I thought it would be. Everyone told me Texas summers would be bad, but this is something else. Luckily though, I don't have to worry

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So if you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made. Go to trymiracle.com slash HSP and use the code HSP to claim your free three piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com.hsp to treat yourself. Thank you to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. For our first story, let's head over to Kansas City. There, on August 7th, 2016, the Schwab family walked through the wooden welcome sign that read, Schlitterbahn, hanging from a twisted storybook arc, welcoming them into the popular

water park. The family consisted of state legislator Scott Schwab, his wife Michelle, and their four young sons, all very eager to ride the water coasters that Schlitterbahn had become famous for. As they walked onto the grounds, they first passed a German castle made of sand, an homage to the park's German roots. But then, the true magnitude of the waterslide jungle came into frame. On one side, the family saw the world's largest

mega wave pool, complete with its own beach-like sandy entrance. There were waterslides with thrill-seeking names like Cyclone, Twister, and Whirlwind, and even something called the Storm Blaster, which was described as an uphill water coaster. It was clear that Schlitterbahn went beyond the imagination of the

average water park. But it was the ride in the back left of Schlitterbahn that really set it apart. Anyone walking onto the grounds would immediately be struck by the sheer magnitude of the park's claim to fame, the biggest water coaster in the world, the Verucht. Standing at 168 feet tall or 51 meters, the Verucht, which translates roughly to insane in German, would make any adrenaline junkie drool. Riding the fiberglass flume down the 17-story drop was like plunging off the side of the Grand Canyon. And not long after the family entered the park, the Schwab's 10-year-old son, Caleb,

turned to them and asked if he could ride it. The ride had been open for about two years, and though it looked intense with its massive drop that turned into a gargantuan rise and fall over a 55 foot hump before slowing to a stop at the end of the slide, over 100,000 riders had already ridden it. Perhaps it was that fact that gave the Schwab some comfort that the attraction was safe, and they agreed that Caleb could go. And so, the little boy started the 264 step climb up to the attractions loading area, passed the kids that got cold feet and turned around, and the you must be this big to ride this ride sign. Though Caleb was only 4'11 and just over 70 pounds, he technically did clear

the height requirement. As he got closer to the top of the slide, an attendant split him into a group of three with two other girls, 25 and 32 year old sisters. The attendant had to use her best judgment to make sure the groups of three were somewhere between 400 and 550 pounds. And eyeing the small Caleb, she must have figured that the two adult sisters balanced out his tiny frame. And so she rattled off her mandatory two-page disclaimer, including the warning, writing Verrookt can lead to death. And then she let them go forward. From the top of the platform, you can see the entire park. The verruc't is stories above the other waterslides and water coasters, and every

square inch of the grounds is basically visible. Even the empty dirt lot to the right of the ride, offering a hard landing should anyone slip and fall at the ride's exposed top. Caleb and the girls loaded onto the three-person flume, him in the front. They pulled the seatbelt, which was similar to a car's, over their right shoulders and into the buckle. Sitting at the apex of the drop

and staring down at the near free fall is terrifying. But riders were offered a little bit of reassurance from the rope netting that covered the top of the slide. The rope was held in place by metal bars to ensure that riders were protected from the outside elements and exposed sides of the slide should anything happen. Once the group got the go-ahead, their raft was sent down the drop. go ahead, their raft was sent down the drop. The flume pretty quickly got to 68 miles an hour.

Air and water whipped at the riders' faces as they raced to the bottom of the drop. But this is where things went wrong. As the raft followed the curve of the slide back up the second hill, it didn't slow down enough to stay on the slide. Instead, when it hit the peak of the curve, it kept going, becoming airborne. The riders were thrown into the rope and metal cover of the slide at speeds as fast as a car breezing down a freeway. Down at the bottom of the ride, two women were standing near the slide after riding when all of a sudden, they heard screaming.

Caleb's flume was slowing to a stop at the end of the ride, but Caleb wasn't inside. Behind it, a trail of blood ran down from the top of the hill. Everyone watched in horror, including Caleb's family, as his body slid down the slide. He had suffered a fatal head injury when his small frame collided with the metal hoop holding up the rope. What followed was chaos. Screams, sirens, parents trying to cover the eyes of their little ones to save them from the trauma of what just happened. The people there that day were horrified and devastated, but there was one person who reacted completely differently from everyone else. When Jeff Henry got the call, I imagine his stomach dropped.

Not at the horror of the accident, but because he knew this was bound to happen. See, Jeff was the mastermind behind the rides at Schlitterbahn, and as the EMTs took away the body of the boy who died on his creation, he must have had a sinking feeling. This was not the first time someone had gotten hurt on the Varroked. In fact, Jeff had been trying to hide the news of the ride's danger since it opened two years ago. Jeff Henry was long considered an amusement park visionary. He was even nicknamed the water showman, wizard of wet, and lord of the slides. But he came from a family of water park enthusiasts.

The Schlitterbahn chain of parks was a family business that started in 1979 on the Henry's family farm out in Texas. Jeff's brother, Gary, handled the finances, and his sister, Jana, ran the marketing, while Jeff designed the rides. Jeff fell in love with waterslides as a teen and became known for pushing the boundaries of typical amusement rides. He taught himself how to make designs that mimicked the authentic rush of outdoor adventures like whitewater rafting. But as much as he loved roller coasters and water attractions, he didn't have any formal training as an engineer. And neither did his right-hand man, John Shulie. But that wasn't going to be a problem. You may be surprised to hear this, but the US has no federal regulations over amusement

parks. States enact protocols through individual agencies or pass them off to private insurance companies who have no guidelines of standards to even check for. So as Jeff built more thrilling and boundary pushing rides, no one could tell him no. And he realized the more thrilling the water coasters were, the more people that came to Schlitterbahn to ride them. The original park started with four blue fiberglass slides and over the next 10 years, Jeff pushed for more thrilling attractions, including a 50,000 square foot pool, artificial rivers with real rapids that would sometimes overpower swimmers,

and a wave simulator that allowed patrons to boogie board. He dreamed up something called the Master Blaster at the original Texas Schlitterbond that was six stories tall. Within a decade, the original Schlitterbahn was so successful that the parks expanded three times from 2001 to 2009 in South Padre Island, Galveston, and Kansas City where Verruct was erected. Verruct had been Jeff and Shululi's most difficult project to date. They had to make sure riders wouldn't pass out from the negative g-forces while hurtling down the first steep drop.

Then they had to figure out how to use extra powerful water cannons, patented as cannon nozzles, to propel the raft up the second incline. To make sure that the raft remained safely in the chute for the entirety of the ride, Jeff and Shuli looked at all of the factors that impacted acceleration and velocity, like water friction, wind velocity generated by the raft's momentum, and the shape and size of the raft itself. This was all in addition to the weight and size of passengers on the raft. Needless to say, it's a job for a seasoned physicist. There are equations that can tell you if an attraction will be safe or not.

But Jeff and Shuly weren't interested in equations. They figured out these limitations using Jeff's preferred method of trial and error. Using miniature models of Verruckt that were a fraction of the size of the actual ride, the team would slide toy cars and watermelons in place of passengers. The thing is, even the toy cars went way too fast. But Jeff wanted to move ahead with the ride anyways. On April 25, 2014, two summers before Caleb's accident, the real Verruckt was erected, but the ride still wasn't working properly.

Sandbags used as placeholders for human passengers in the raft were flying out of the slide. It was still dangerously fast. In response to the failed tests though, they just adjusted the angle of the first drop to be less steep at the bottom and added an additional 5 feet on the hill of the second incline to slow the flume down so it didn't catch air. As long as the three passengers in the flume weighed between 400 and 550 pounds and each person was at least 54 inches tall, their research showed that the ride was secure. And so, Varukht officially opened in July of 2014. And of course, as you could probably imagine, accidents started happening immediately. Before Caleb's death, there were 11 reports of injuries on Varukht that were never properly

reported. One of them occurred just two days before Caleb's accident. There was the time a man approached an attendant with his eye swollen shut. He said that his fiberglass flume had gone airborne over the hill and he had hit his head on the metal bar above him. Nothing ever came of that complaint and that was the same bar that Caleb Schwab hit. But why did some people's raft fly off the hill and others didn't? After all, Caleb easily met the ride's height requirement at 411 and the combined weight of everyone on his raft ended up being 544 pounds, five below the upper weight limit.

Well, like I said, Jeff didn't wanna do the math and Schlitterbund didn't consider how the drastic uneven weight distribution could affect a raft like Caleb's. The fact that the majority of the weight was loaded in the back of the raft was said by experts to be a huge factor in Caleb's death. When the flume became airborne because of Verroek's dangerous acceleration, Caleb was pushed further in the air than the average rider, putting him within reach of the metal

pole. Experts also questioned the Velcro belt and shoulder strap which had become loose for multiple other passengers in the past. After Caleb's accident, Schlitterbahn stayed open, but Verruckt was closed to riders. It still loomed over the park though like a skyscraper as a morbid reminder of what had happened. Caleb's family didn't make a statement after the accident, though eventually they would go on to of what had happened. Caleb's family didn't make a statement after the accident, though eventually they would go on to tell ABC that Caleb brought abundant joy into their lives from the moment he was born. And in the end, Schlitterbund settled with Caleb's family for $20 million. Though all other charges against the Henrys were dropped because of improper

evidence by the prosecution. It was justice denied. Though some look at Caleb's story as the fault of Geoff Henry, it's a sobering reminder of the dark history that clings to amusement parks. They're unregulated, and if you can dream up a ride, you can make it. Jeff was a bad actor in a bad system. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to look into another deadly coaster that attracted thrill seekers from all over the country. seekers from all over the country.

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I just had one of their flour tortillas on its own because they're just that delicious and it was more than half of my recommended amount of fiber for the day. Eating a plain tortilla never felt so good. Keep the carbs out of summer without compromising flavor with hero bread. Get 10% off your order at hero.co and use code HSP at checkout. That's HSP at h-e-r-o dot c-o. On the evening of July 24th, 1930, 20-year-old local Alvin Homan stood in line to ride the biggest coaster at his local amusement park, Krug Park.

Krug Park was so much more than just an amusement park though. It was the most popular social destination in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally opened in 1895, it was a combination of a state fair and a beer garden where children and adults could play carnival games, have a picnic, or even ride hot air balloons. But the park was really known for their large wooden coaster, the Big Dipper. Crook Park promised guests they could quote, scare themselves to death on the big wooden coaster which was originally called the Giant Coaster when it was built in 1917. The roller coaster architect John Miller called the Big Dipper his best work. The coaster began with a slow rattling incline to the top of the first drop and

continued for nearly a mile of dips, jumps, and bends along the wooden tracks. It had been rebuilt and repainted multiple times since 1917, when the ride's highest incline was raised from 30 to 60 feet. Near Alvin, in line, were other teens and young adults eager to get on the thrilling ride. One was 15- old Ruth Claire Farrell. Another was Gladys Lundgren and her friend, C.H. Stout. Earlier, Gladys had decided it was getting too cold to go into the pool, so she and C.H. headed over

to the coaster to get another ride in. Then there was 22 year old Tony Politica, who was with a group of 15 coworkers. They were having their company picnic that day and Tony brought his sister along, who was standing near him. Just after sunset, the group finally made it to the front where they loaded into the cars. Alvin sat down in the third to last seat in the third to last car and got ready like thousands of guests before him to scream for his life. Once all 23 riders were in their seats, the carriage finally started slowly chugging forward

to climb the initial hill of the coaster. When all of a sudden, Alvin heard a noise. It was loud and sounded like gears grinding. He had been standing near the coaster for a while in line and watched a dozen rides go by, but none of them made a sound like this. Just then, he felt a jolt that sent shockwaves across the four connected cars. The brake shoe of the first car had dislodged and was stuck under the front left wheel. The bump pushed the car out of alignment. Alvin watched in horror as the car two ahead of his jumped off the track and started careening

towards the guardrail. The riders realized what was happening and started screaming. The car was set to break through the weak piece of wood acting as a guardrail and plunge down into the ground below. There was nothing anyone could do. The attendant watched in horror, unable to stop the first car as it crashed through the rail. Screams from terrified, trapped passengers filled the air as it quickly yanked the second car over the edge behind it. Alvin could hear the big dipper's wooden structure creaking under the pressure of the two cars dangling in midair. He struggled to try and unlatch the safety restraints holding him in. Riders behind him

were unbuckling themselves to jump to safety. They must have thought it would have been better to have a broken leg than be stuck in a car they knew was going to crash to the ground. Within a moment though, gravity won out. The entire carriage was pulled over the edge and free fell 30 feet to the ground. Alvin came to in what papers described as a veritable hell. He looked around, in shock but alive, as friends and family members ran over in a panic. Parents screamed for their

children as they watched the cars plummet. Onlookers climbed the park's gates to get a closer look at the mayhem. The scene was a mess around Alvin. Passengers everywhere were unconscious and bloody. Some screamed in horror, trying desperately to unbuckle themselves from the tangled mess. He could see Tony and his sister in their seats, blood rushing from his sister's head. Tony would be pronounced dead at the hospital the next morning, but his sister would walk away with a skull fracture. Ultimately, four people were killed in the crash.

15-year-old Ruth Claire Farrell, 29-year-old Gladys Lundgren and her friend, 34-year-old C.H. Stout, and 22-year-old Tony Politica. 17 others were injured. 15 of them were Tony's co-workers. And Alvin walked away with just a few cuts and bruises. An investigation was launched where disturbing details about the ride came to light. The coaster had made similar strange noises on the trip before the fatal one, but it was not stopped. One of its original builders, Eugene Lewis, inspected the coaster on July 24th and said

everything looked in order, but the investigation saw that the coaster was in late stages of disrepair. Much of the wood on the Big Dipper was rotted and old. Even though the wood by the crash point was in good condition as it had been recently repaired, the type of pine and fur used could never withstand the wear and tear of a roller coaster after 10 years. Some people suspected the owners of the park knew the ride was out of date. They had done rebuilds and shoddy paint jobs to cover it up. But Krug denied this. The guardrail was also deemed completely inadequate.

The councilman leading the investigation described it as an easily kicked in 2 inch piece of wood that functioned as more of a guide rail. Powerful structures like roller coasters and bridges needed a true guardrail that could withstand shock. They ultimately concluded that even if the brake shoe hadn't gotten in the way that day, the wheel would have fallen off eventually because of the weak connection. The Omaha City Council did immediately in the hours after the crash propose a city ordinance banning roller coasters altogether.

It passed by a unanimous vote the following Tuesday. Krug Park stayed open, without coasters, until 1940. The victims came together to sue the owners in a class action suit for $420,000, which had only been done once before after another famous crash you're probably familiar with, the Titanic. The victims were awarded over $100,000 in damages in 1931, but they ultimately only received a fraction of that after the courts assessed the parks didn't have any funds to pay. With four dead and over 17 injured, the Big Dipper crash was the most deadly in amusement park history for a long time. But an attraction that was supposed to be all scares and no risk would eventually

take its gruesome place. Our last story takes us forward in time 50 years and up to Jackson, New Jersey. There, at the Six Flags Great Adventure, school buses full of high school students from the area were arriving. It was the annual end of the year field trip ahead of summer. For those that may be unfamiliar with Six Flags, it's a chain theme park in North America, with some of the most thrilling coasters you've ever seen. That mid-May night in 1984 was packed with students ahead of another promising summer season. Screams echoed all around as coasters whizzed by, kids walked with ice cream cones dripping down their hands, and somewhere in the distance a

rock band played. Suzette Elliott and Tina Genovese were 15 year olds who had made friends with a couple of boys, Nikola and Joseph from Patterson, New Jersey. The group got in line for the haunted castle behind five senior boys from Franklin K Lane School in Brooklyn. While many of the rides at Six Flags are thrilling and stomach churning, the haunted castle offered thrills without the vertigo. It opened initially as a temporary installment in 1979, but quickly became a fan favorite that was cheap and easy to operate, so the owners decided to keep it around. Like most haunted houses, performers were hired to jump out and scare patrons walking through the castle. They were dressed up as

witches, mummies, and vampires. All of the typical monsters spooky enough to scare you with a couple of special effects in place. Some of the actors were dressed as characters from horror movies like Frankenstein's Monster and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The teens walked across the drawbridge, covering the moat in front of the all-white castle. Black and gray gargoyles peeked down at them from behind the ride's sign. They crossed the dark threshold into the pitch black maze inside of the castle, where long hallways feature different, terrifying scenes like Frankenstein's monster and a lady on a medieval torture device.

From inside the castle, they wouldn't have been able to tell that the ride was actually a series of rooms built in 17 commercial metal trailers with connected walkways. The 70 by 100 foot space was a mirror image setup of eight identical trailers facing each other with a control room for the staff hidden in the center. The halls were filled with typical haunted decor like paper mache skeletons, coffins and spiderwebs covering rickety furniture. Guests were disoriented with strobe lights and sharp turns to keep their sense of fright heightened as they navigated through the maze of trailers. When the lights weren't strobing, it was often so dark that they would break their lighters out just to get around. Just after 6pm, when Suzette's group had already been sent into the experience, the

next group was about to enter. One of the ride goers was a 13 year old boy who looked a little scared. An older boy offered to help guide him through the ride. He'd done it before, he said, and he knew the way. By 6.30, they were halfway through the experience when the lights suddenly flickered off. One of the strobe lights had malfunctioned. It was already so dark inside the haunted castle's narrow, windowless hallways, and without that light, they couldn't really see anything at all. But the older kid thought quickly. He had a lighter on him.

And soon, the dim orange glow of the flame was lighting the way. But the hallway was so narrow and the striped walls were so disorienting, so while he led the group out, he accidentally grazed one of the walls with the lighter. There were 29 people inside the crammed, paper mache and wooden castle when the boy turned his head at the smell of smoke. His scream wouldn't have been heard farther than his own hallway.

Back inside the castle, flames immediately erupted from the wall. The group tried to put it out with a plastic bag, but the fire got too powerful too quickly. Luckily, as they turned to run out of the building, they saw the glow of an emergency exit not far from them. They were able to scramble out, along with four adults who also witnessed the accident. In a matter of minutes, though, the fire had spread through the entire trailer, quickly making its way to Suzette's group on the other side of the castle. Up ahead, Suzette had linked arms with Tina and their new friends

from Patterson to keep themselves from falling as they stumbled through the dark halls. When the other boys in their group, Eric Rodriguez, Samuel Valentin, Lennie Ruiz, Jose Carrion, and Christopher Harrison had a mischievous idea. The boys from Brooklyn convinced their group to crouch behind a corner and wait for the next one to come so they could jump out and scare them. But as the nine teens waited, the next group behind them never showed.

And that's when they realized something was wrong. The smoke filling the other end of the hallway wasn't from a fog machine. Then they heard someone scream, FIRE. The group searched in a panic for the exit but it was nearly impossible to find in the dark. One of the boys yanked open a nearby door hoping he had found a way out but it was a fake door built for the experience. It just opened into a wall. Suzette knew there wasn't time to waste and she ran with her hand along the wall using it as a guide to trace her way

back out towards the exit. She got close to one, but all around her desperate park goers were stampeding. Some of them knocked her over in an attempt to get out. She watched as the smoke in the room descended from the ceiling, filling up every square inch around her. She put a bandana to her mouth to try and prevent it from filling her lungs. As this was happening, park employee Gary Kaplow was standing outside of the haunted castle when a guest burst out the back and alerted him to the fire. Because the attraction had simulated fire sequences in it, Gary was

used to guests leaving the castle and claiming there was a fire, but something about this time didn't feel right. This guest looked legitimately terrified and mentioned the fire was happening in a totally separate part of the ride from the simulations. So without thinking twice, Gary ran into the building, where he was met with thick black smoke. Haunting sounds of witch and ghost animatronics echoed through the halls as they melted in the 2000 degree fire. That's just over 1000 degrees celsius. But the terrifying hellscape didn't stop Gary, who pushed deeper into the building as the smoke stung his lungs. And there, on the floor, on her hands and knees, almost unconscious from the smoke,

was Suzette. Gary scooped her up into his arms and took off towards the emergency exit. She was given an oxygen machine from the firefighters on the scene, but as she looked around at the survivors covered in soot and burns, she didn't see any of her group. The fire raged for an hour and a half. Witnesses said the flames were a massive 100 feet tall, whipping in the wind. Once firemen were able to enter what was left of the building, they were disturbed to realize the remains were so burnt that they couldn't tell the prop skeletons and kitschy mannequins apart

from the actual bodies. All of the eight other people in Suzette's group would be pronounced dead at the scene. Their cause of death was asphyxiation and carbon monoxide poisoning. They were found only 25 feet from the exit. They were the only casualties, but at least 8 other people were treated for smoke inhalation. Once the police were told about the lighter the kids were using, the cause of the fire was no longer a mystery. They were able to confirm that the lighter had made contact with one of the foam bumpers

that was put on the wall to stop guests from running into any hard surfaces. But why had it spread so quickly? The investigation by the state of New Jersey found that even though the attraction had passed every inspection, it had the perfect conditions for a fire. Once the piece of foam lit ablaze, the flames were fanned by the air conditioners to travel across ceilings, walls, and carpeting covered in negligently flammable decorations. The trailers weren't ventilated properly so smoke filled the space before people could realize it wasn't part of the experience. Even worse, the castle didn't have an adequate fire detection system in place. There were no

smoke detectors, no fire alarms, or manual pull stations to warn staff or guests that a fire had broken out. It also lacked fire suppressant devices like overhead sprinklers. And once guests did try to escape, there were no safety maps, emergency lighting, or lit exit signs to help them. These measures are critical for rides that intentionally obscure riders' vision. Six Flags argued that the older boy using the lighter was actually an arsonist, and an Ocean County Superior Court jury found the park not guilty. Perhaps, though, there was one good thing to come of this tragedy. Local lawmakers vowed something like this would never happen again and now New Jersey has the strictest fire safety laws in the country. But no one should

have to die doing something as innocent as walking through a haunted house for amusement park companies and the government to put human lives ahead of cutting corners to save money. human lives ahead of cutting corners to save money. There's something about that last story that really, really makes me mad. Perhaps it's because the kids were in a haunted house, one of my favorite activities to partake in. Haunted houses should be safe places to explore our dark desire to be scared, knowing that we'll be safe the entire time. But corporate greed and negligence ruined that for a group of kids. Let me leave you with this little dark fact about theme parks.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the department that oversees product safety in America, has no say over roller coasters. Instead, regulations are left up to the states, some of which use limited resources from understaffed agencies like their busy state departments to inspect every single amusement-related operation within its borders. Even more shockingly, many states pass the responsibility of policing amusement parks off to insurance companies. Insurance inspectors don't have any particular schooling or accreditation and aren't given an approved set of guidelines to enforce.

Many of them, just like Jeff Henry, are not scholars in physics. They're just told to check if the rides are in good condition and are following the manufacturer's instructions. This means in states like Kansas and Texas, for parks like Schlitterbahn where the rides are designed in-house, following the instructions the park itself created is all they have to do to pass the inspection. So this summer, use your best judgment. I trust all of you more than I trust the government or any corporation to make sure you and your family are safe. So that's all I have for you now. But Dark Summer is just getting started. Stay tuned for next week's episode where we set sail on the high seas and dive into a cruise ship murder mystery.

Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kaylen Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research by Marissa Dow. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grace and Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.