Top 10 Saddest Theme Park Events
RULES:1. This list's items have to be about or specifically inside the theme park, no parking lot, hotel or transportation incidents.
2. This list can only contain permanent theme parks, no fairs.
3. Waterpark-only places cannot be on the list, but waterparks with other rides (e.g. Action Park) are allowed on this list.
Those eight victims' ages ranged from 15 to 19. A would-be ninth victim had almost made it to the exit before passing out. She was carried out the rest of the way by an actor who'd already broken character to make his own way out.
At least nobody died in the Universal Studios and Lagoon fires. This one, on the other hand, had eight casualties.
Go to no. 4 and you'll see why I'm so angry that this even happened in the 1st place.
I don't know how on Earth no one has added this yet! 7 people died, and 6 of them were CHILDREN for crying out loud! Worse yet, everyone aboard the ride could've died because the fire was THAT out of control. One woman lost her ENTIRE family, and her life was only spared since she was craving ice cream.
Those poor kids and paramedics; I can't imagine witnessing what they went through.
Granted, not quite as sad as the Triangle Factory fire that happened just days earlier in the same city, but sad (and scary) all the same.
Well, I gotta say, amusement parks had some... interesting things before the invention of drop towers, steel coasters, 200+ foot coasters, etc. Gotta fill that void somehow.
Disney must have realizes this before they actually started destroying Splash Mountain, since they decided not to make it about finding Louis's lost trumpet in time for Mardi Gras in favor of riding through the effing AVERY SALT MINE to get some salt for Tiana's Palace.
And Disney "cancelled" all alligators and crocodiles/references thereto... for about a year. Now they're retheming Splash Mountain to some bs centered around the gator from "The Princess and the Frog".
Even sadder: seeing it surrounded by construction walls advertising Avery Salt Mine, where many slaves DIED. Disney just slapped up "Tiana Foods" signs over the offending logo, but didn't announce that they'd seen the error of their ways and decided to go with a different theme (ideally they would have decided to keep Splash Mountain, but that would have been asking too much).
Worse, they officially announced the closing date (January 23, 2023) to begin the conversion to a ride that doesn't fit the ride's location in the park or the character/movie they're re-theming it to.
At least they didn't burn to death like the animals at Dreamland.
In the first year...
The NBA Experience itself only lasted a few years. Currently there's just a big empty building there.