Thank you for this. Really. The discussion around this appears to break into three (somewhat overlapping) categories: personal concern, speculation/curiosity, and profiteering. The first two are fine, but the third is gross and I appreciate you avoiding even the appearance of it.
This is an interesting background!
Front by far. There is an extra 15 min line for it. It is extra intense in a scary way, not in a shaking way up there tho cuz the views
I have to respectfully ask - to what end should we seek these picture out?
And you know this for sure?
I am not intending to be rude but I have to say that implying you are an expert on this man and his condition and how he is 100% responsible is really making me angry. I know you have ride ops experience but you are not on the inside of this investigation.
For comparison, I am 100% fine with this:
Change of topic: Sharing this feedback on VB without Tapu Tapu. Keep in mind yesterday was somewhat rainy, but the crowd size was not dissimilar from my past visits.
https://forum.touringplans.com/t/attack-of-the-force-family/106400/110
Thanks for the report. Funny, I had read speculation that express pass wouldn’t work without Tapu Tapu, I didn’t realize they were selling it. Thanks!
I apologize if I have upset you.
I was very clear that I am only speculating and using anecdotal information. It is only my opinion based on experience working Ops and assisting the disabled getting on rides. I never claimed to have any insider info or a close friend to Kevin.
I am not trolling anyone or trying to trigger you. I respect that you are upset and it was never my intention.
If you want to talk to me further about this my DMs are always open.
If you are asking where to find them go to WESH Orlando. Sadly, his life and images are now plastered all over the internet.
If you are asking me why someone would look at them, it’s so you can see how little muscular support Kevin had in his routine day.
Traditionally, the middle of most coasters is the smoothest. Here’s my personal guidelines for coasters.
Front = Best View, not as fast
Middle = no view, smooth ride
Back = fastest, but roughest
To be clear, I never said you were trying to troll or trigger.
I think you will find that many of your statements, including the one I quoted were not stated as speculation but were stated as fact.
My point about asking about the pictures was not that I need to go see pictures of Kevin. It was the opposite and a poor way of me saying one cannot possibly know everything about a person’s physical condition from a picture. I don’t think we should speculate facts based on a photo of someone. Maybe that is something that we disagree on.
I don’t think that disagreement = drama. I am on Universal Reddit a fair amount and have seen way worse posts. I wouldn’t say anything there, because it is not a community. I feel like this is a community and should be a safer place to share when something someone says bothers me, or makes me feel a certain way.
I have been frustrated by the huge amount of victim blaming that I have seen everywhere. So it made me angry when I felt like that was what I was seeing on this thread. This may not have been your intention, but it is what it felt like to me.
To add to my thoughts, and this is not directed at you specifically: I think it is human nature to speculate, especially when it comes to our own safety. How am I different from the victim? Could it happen to me? Is there an engineering flaw? We have to speculate in order to make safety decisions for ourself. But I have seen that there is a very thin line between having these kinds of discussions, to the discussion moving to blaming the victim before we have all the facts. There is still so much that is unkown.
I think your concerns are valid, and definitely agree I have seen a lot of victim blaming and insensitivity online. I hope all of us here agree that is inappropriate since we don’t have access to all the facts, and we should be respectful of his family.
However, in @darkmite2’s case, I think his intention with sharing this message was specifically to assuage fears of those who are hesitant to ride now, because unfortunately Universal is unlikely to share the information he speculated on directly. So speculation is the best we can do, and honestly I appreciate his perspective because it has made me feel a little better about riding it. He doesn’t know everything about this rider, but he does have a lot of relevant experience operating similar rides.
This is where I think the situation has led to some divisiveness. In this particular case, either there was something wrong with the ride, which means it is UOR’s “fault”, or there was nothing wrong with the ride, and it is the rider’s “fault”. We don’t like the term victim blaming, because that brings baggage with it. But we can’t ignore the fact that, based on what we DO KNOW, Kevin shouldn’t have been on this ride. I don’t think he thought anything would happen to him, otherwise he wouldn’t have ridden. But something did happen, and the fact that investigations have cleared the ride.
So now the blame game happens. But I am not sure it is blaming to merely state the fact that he shouldn’t have ridden the ride. That is simply a fact. Blame starts to come in when we want to discuss who is responsible for enforcing the rules, etc., and personal responsibility for deciding to ride.
It leads to, rather than a blame game, needing to be a discussion where people understand that these intense rides are not the same as riding, say, Haunted Mansion. We cannot treat them the same, and accessibility cannot be the same. Hopefully people don’t ignore warning signs. Conversations will happen as a result of this.
I concur, I appreciate the post as well.
Your theory does make a lot of sense though- on how this could happen but also be within the limitations universal works with. the can not legally ask, can you use your spine if you passed out?
Which is also the same as the CMs at the ride. They have to legally allow a person to make that ultimate decision… as of now. they could make some sort of test for anyone requesting any assistance,
me too. but to be fair he disregarded the warnings…
this was my concern but it seems its user disregard.
At this point I think we all need to make the decision for ourselves.
yes, because that could fall into hippa laws.
They have now changed their policy to say that anyone who wants to ride (not just Stardust) must be able to get themselves on the ride without ANY assistance (including from others in the party).
I agree with your post and this is definitely the either or. I think the reality is probably in between - where bioth sides have some responsibility, and where, as you say, conversations should happen. We are each responsible for considering the linitations of our body. And Universal is responsible for understanding the limitations of its rides. It appears, because of the new language changes, the ride had a limitation that may have been impossible to know, but still existed.
So on one hand there needs to be a conversation within the theme park industry about the stresses these rides can put on a body and possible new restrictions across the industry based on this accident. On the other hand, the riding public needs to have conversations with themselves and their loved ones about the limitations of thier own bodies and the inherent risk of these rides.
My simplified personal example (sorry for the length)
When DD was little we went to a water park. She was tall enough for most rides, but she was tall for her age. At the top of a new ride the lifgaurd told us, “she is very young and this is a rough ride. I know she is tall enough, but I don’t think she is developed enough (head and neck) to risk it.” She didn’t ride, and when I rode it later, there were places that banged your head and neck around.
In this case I think responsibility is tricky:
I am 100% grateful the lifegaurd told is that, but in no way do I think he was responsible for telling us that, or would have had any responsibility if something happened to her.
As parents, we had responsibility to understand our daughter’s limitations based on her development and to keep her safe. This incident triggered more vigilance on our part.
But we trusted the park that meeting the height requirement ment it was safe. So I also think the water park should have had an age restriction for those rides. Could people ignore them? Sure. But I would never would have.
Then the key question–as this stoty relates to EPIC–is, would the water slide industry even know they needed an age restriction without having something bad happen? Would it occur to them to think about development in addition to physics? For decades car seats only had height guidelines. It is only more recently car seats have developmental guidelines as well. The standards grow and evolve.
And sometimes it takes a something bad happen to know what you didn’t know - for organizations and individuals.
I thought HIPPA only applied to health related organizations and providers, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong. For Universal, maybe there is different privacy issue (not related to hippa) with respect to medical information?
It also added a new warning not to ride if you have weakened bones or muscles–which I think, based on other discussions, was what happened here. And also why I speculate about this being a black swan that may change industry standards.
Exactly! 
It’s not HIPAA. It’s due to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The parks have to make accommodations and can not discriminate against you for needing them.
It’s a very “gray" area to try to determine what is discrimination and what is public safety. A cast, crutches, walking boots, slings are all easy to point out as evidence of not discriminating.
The parks try to avoid appearing to discriminate and the legal battles it entails by letting riders determine on their own if they are eligible, in most cases, if they can’t point out those medical devices.
This was covered in my Ops training..
Universal has decided that scooters and wheelchairs are now going to fall under the category of those devices that now allow you to ask more questions, such as “Can you independently walk?” and restrict eligibility.
Hope that helps!!
This is it. HIPPA is what prevents your doctor from giving medical information to your car insurance without your explicit permission. Outside of a medical setting, any information you divulge is not protected. But at the same time, there should be no one outside a medical setting making medical diagnoses. But someone telling a TM that they have spinal stenosis is not covered, because there’s no way for the TM to verify if said guest actually has stenosis or not.
But there are a lot of ADA laws on what a property is and is not allowed to ask a guest. Usually the only questions allowed are anything directly related to safety and accessibility. I get asked if I can go up and down stairs. Like JC and the couple of steps down, or sometimes I don’t get bottom row of ToT.
What @FelisLachesis said! HIPPA amd ADA get combined or confused a lot because they both deal with privacy.
You may be right. Not sure what it is called then. Maybe it’s the ADA laws? Anyway, it’s where they can’t ask you to disclose what exactly is your medical issues.
Thank you.
This is what I was referring to.
Yes, but now that it’s pointed out I do know the difference, lol. Just said the wrong thing.