Riders, especially young children, can be injured in mundane ways. Last year, Kathy Fackler's son David, then 5, caught his foot between the platform and the Thunder Mountain roller coaster car at Disneyland. His foot was crushed and all five toes had to be amputated. When all systems work properly, parkgoers can flirt safely with danger. Sex doesn't even make it to that level.
Some riders even get a perverse thrill from trying a ride on which a death occurred.
Yet the tragic summer of '99 may be a hard memory to shake. Even coaster fanatics are panicking, says Steve Urbanowicz, author of The Roller Coaster Lover's Companion. So are families who love thrill rides. Three days after a mother and her daughter were killed on the roller coaster at Gillian's Wonderland Pier, the Sadowl family of Horsham, Pa., visited the Ocean City park. The parents and their four daughters, ages 7 to 18, rode the tame blue train that circles above.