From what I understand, he may have gone through an unlocked employee gate, but then he still would have had to jump a fence to get into the restricted zone. That’s for some areas are at up… like, you can go through a gate at Millennium Force at CP that will put you into an area for crew, where cleaning supplies and such are kept. We never kept that locked.
Behind that is a bigger fence that has a do not enter sign
and a gate that has a big lockout lock on it… that leads to one of the low zones. To open that lock you need both the key and a tag. All low zones have one, and there’s a lockout tagout board. The tags come out when you fasten the lock, and get placed on the board… if all the tags aren’t there then the ride isn’t secured and you don’t run it.
Taking a closer look at the banshee (picture below) I see a metal thing behind people’s legs. That may be long enough to hit someone on the ground without hitting the riders.
That has to be it….
Analysis of the banshees, which I’m sure was done in this case, would identify exactly where/what hit him. I couldn’t find anything on the internet, but maybe the investigation is not complete or details won’t be disclosed to the public.
I have ridden Banshee many times. It is an awesome inverted coaster. I suspect that riders may have come in contact with the guy, but often on inverts riders stick their legs out instead of have them just dangle. So it is very possible luck (for the riders, not the guy) made them avoid significant contact… which would mean the guy was likely hit directly by the bottom of the seat.
I’ve seen the end result of a handful of people vs. bird encounters (Wicked Twister was right on the beach, and launched, after all)… they were all bloody, but that was usually just from the bus and only of them had an actual injury that turned out to be a not actually broken nose. Purple would come back and show us bruises, though… mostly on arms and legs.
It’s exhausting.
because I quickly realized it was misleading/fake.