Disneyland Victim Released

A Washington state woman who was injured in a Christmas Eve accident at Disneyland that killed her husband was released Saturday from UC Irvine Medical Center.

Hospital officials said Lieu Thuy Vuong, 43, was in good condition when she left in the afternoon. She underwent minor reconstructive surgery on the right side of her face while she was hospitalized.

She and her husband, Luan Phi Dawson, were visiting from Duvall, Wash., and had taken their son and grandson to the Anaheim amusement park.

There, an eight-pound metal cleat on the tall ship Columbia, one of Disneyland’s oldest attractions, snapped loose as the ship tried to dock. The flying cleat struck a crowd of visitors, including Vuong and her husband.

An autopsy report said Dawson, 33, died Dec. 26 of a brain hemorrhage and a skull fracture. A private memorial service for Dawson had been delayed until Vuong’s release and now is planned for “some time in the future,” according to a hospital statement.

Although the coroner’s office did not investigate how the accident happened, the autopsy report gave the first official account of the events leading up to the tragedy. It said the Disneyland worker responsible for securing the ship to the dock did not realize how fast the vessel was approaching and attached the mooring line to the ship’s bow. The worker sustained injuries to her foot.

Proper procedure, according to the autopsy report, is to allow the ship to “overshoot the dock, and then reverse” gently into position at the dock.