Florida sisters sue Disney after being seriously injured on the PeopleMover ride at the Magic Kingdom

Is the Magic Kingdom's PeopleMover ride a safe and tame ride or a death trap just waiting to happen?
Disney is no stranger to personal injury lawsuits, especially from guests who unexpectedly get injured from malfunctioning rides or inattention to safety details from park staff inside their theme parks and resorts.

Disneyland's version of the PeopleMover was indeed
a death trap that killed two boys and seriously injured
another girl
The latest such lawsuit comes from two sisters from South Florida who have filed suit against the Walt Disney Company, alleging they sustained serious injuries while on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (TTA) PeopleMover ride in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Florida in 2015.

The sisters in question, Jaime Gentile, 40, and Jackie Hurley, 38, said they were injured when "the ride malfunction, causing the passenger cars to crash into one another," according to their lawsuit filed in an Orange County Circuit Court.

The two seek damages of only around $15,000, which presumably will only cover their medical expenses, and not much else, which seems very reasonable against a multi-billion dollar company, such as the Walt Disney Company, which has such deep pockets. Holy cow! If it were anyone else, we'd expect they'd sue for a whole lot more!

The sisters' attorney, Jeffrey Alderman, said his clients were immediately transported by ambulance from the Magic Kingdom to a local hospital when the accident occurred in 2015.

Adelman said Gentile suffered injuries from the accident to her jaw requiring surgery, and Hurley suffered injuries to her spine requiring neck surgery. According to Adelman, Gentile still has difficulty chewing to this day, while Hurley has chronic pain from their injuries.


Hurley's two minor children, who were also inside the ride vehicles at the time, were also injured during the accident, according to the lawsuit.


The TTA PeopleMover has been around in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom since 1975.

How did the fatalities on the PeopleMover happen?
However, its sister ride at Disneyland, Anaheim, which was the inspiration for copying the ride at Disney World, has had an older and more controversial history, where it operated in a similar manner from 1967 to 1995 inside Disneyland's Tomorrowland in Anaheim, California.

The PeopleMover has always been presumed by everyone, who has gone to a Disney theme park, to be a "safe and sane ride" compared to even other so-called "tame rides" at Disney theme parks, featuring trams lined up on a track moving at a slow, gingerly pace (of speeds less than 7 mph) which leisurely tour around Tomorrowland for about 10 minutes with some backstory narrative about the progress of tomorrow, and doesn't do much else.

However, there's more than meets the eye in terms of safety with this so-called "safe and tame ride" that Disney does not like to publicize.


WDW Info reports that since 2013, the Disney's attractions operating guide requires all cast members working the attraction to warn guests of the possibility that the ride vehicles may bump into each other when the ride starts and stops unexpectedly, so Disney was fully aware that unexpected collisions between PeopleMover cabs may have been a serious safety issue.

Personal injury lawsuits have indeed changed the
Disney theme parks for better or worse
The other safety issues about the PeopleMover ride, particularly from its sister ride at Disneyland, is absolutely chilling to learn about and was one of the key reasons why the ride was shut down for good at Disneyland in 1995.

There have been two deaths and one serious injury previously associated with the PeopleMover ride in Disneyland, Anaheim.

In August of 1967, a 17-year-old boy was crushed and his body slowed dragged and flattened over a few hundred feet along the tracks of the rides by several ride vehicles before the ride was stopped. This occurred at Disneyland after the ride had only been open for about one month.

In 1972, a teenage girl suffered serious injuries after falling 30 feet from the tracks of the PeopleMover ride in Disneyland onto the concrete apron below, breaking her arm hip and pelvis.

And on June 7, 1980, history repeated itself when an 18-year-old male was similarly crushed and killed by the PeopleMover at Disneyland in the same manner as the 1967 incident.

Thus, it's not too far-fetched to believe that Disney may be 100% liable for these two ladies' injuries. Disney should, however, be thankful that it's probably only going to cost them $15,000 this time. The defendants could—and should—have sued for a whole lot more because it looks like the Mouse will try to quickly and very quietly settle this case (even if the damages were a whole lot more) out of court.


Sources:

Comments

Post a Comment