A man was just hit by Banshee about an hour ago and has been life flighted to the hospital. People report he has previously been heard telling the ride operators that he lost his keys while riding, and it’s said he jumped the fence into the ride area to find them. Witnesses say they were in the ride and saw him lying facedown, motionless, as they approached the station.
We can all hope he makes it, but for the love of everything, don’t ever think the rules or fences or railings don’t apply to you! They’ll go look for your keys, or your phone, or wallet or whatever when the park is closed. Nothing in the world is ever with that.
this makes me think of the Tram … “If something falls off the tram, tell one of the vested cast mbrs and we’ll help you recover it, NEVER jump off to grab a lost item” or something like that… I know WDW does a great job w/ lost/found.
The ride is one of those where people have their feet dangling in the air. Was he hit by an empty banshee? I would imagine that in an occupied banshee the people riding would be seriously injured. Thankfully that was not the case.
The train was occupied. They came back and the front row were saying “We hit something! Maybe it was a deer?” and there were… obvious signs that they’d hit something. No serious injuries in the riders though, and it was dusk so they really didn’t see what they hit very well. Riders do occasionally hit birds and such, and it can be messy (look up Fabio roller coaster if you really want to see one), so that in itself wouldn’t have been super alarming until the next train came in saying they saw a body.
When a similar incident happened at Raptor in 2015 a rider’s leg was broken. I can’t even imagine… a guy I know who was working and saw the that incident still can’t ride the ride.
It’s so weird to me that it seems to always be inverted coasters, and almost always middle aged dudes of seemingly normal capacity… it happened twice at Batman in GA in 2002 and 2008 (the second of those was a teen), Raptor at CP in 2015, and now Banshee.
Not saying dying is good, but if anyone jumps a fence into a roller coaster area (particularly inverted, which are more dangerous because you aren’t as safe being under the track as other coaster types which ride on top), he kinda had a death wish.
But what is sad is my wife read that he was there with his two sons. How AWFUL for them! I can’t even imagine.
You hit someone at 70 mph and you get some scrapes and bruises? I can’t wrap my mind around this. I’m actually surprised I seem to be the only one… Maybe it’s my past training in forensics.
