Disneyland Safety Signs Follow Injuries

Disneyland is placing safety warning signs on ride cars throughout the park in the aftermath of the September accident on Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin that left a 4 1/2-year-old Los Angeles County boy with severe brain damage, state officials said Friday.

The park swiftly installed new cautionary signs Thursday night on Alice in Wonderland cars, hours after a 15-year-old boy from Mesa, Ariz., broke his foot and leg on the attraction. Disneyland also recently added signs to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, where a La Jolla boy’s foot was crushed between two train cars in 1998.

On Friday, an attorney for the family of 4 1/2-year-old Brandon Zucker said Disneyland has replaced signs on the steering wheels of the “taxicabs” in the still-closed Roger Rabbit ride. The signs previously read, “Spin, Spin, Spin,” but now caution passengers to stay inside the car and keep their arms and legs inside, said the attorney, Thomas Girardi, who inspected the ride this week.

“They are starting to come to grips,” Girardi said of Disneyland officials. “They are going to finally have to put these [warnings] on the rest of the rides. But you would have thought they would have done something about it before, since they knew about these problems.”

Disneyland spokeswoman Chela Castano-Lenahan disputed Girardi’s charges.

“Disneyland is a very safe place,” Castano-Lenahan said. “More than 21 million guests have ridden the Roger Rabbit attraction and we are only aware of one other incident with a 13-year-old girl who stepped off, and the unfortunate incident with Brandon. Disneyland is a very safe place to be.”

Castano-Lenahan would not comment on the new signs or any other safety measures until after the state finishes its investigation of the accidents on Roger Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland.

“It’s premature to comment before the investigations are complete,” she said.

Disneyland has not added additional safety restraints on the Roger Rabbit ride, Girardi said. Some say the ride needs more than a single lap bar--perhaps seat belts, shoulder harnesses or a door. The Zucker family wants Disneyland to add seat belts, according to Brandon’s therapist, who has grown close to the family.

“If signs are all they do, it would send [the Zuckers] over the edge in being insulted,” therapist Elinor Silverstein said Friday. “How could they think signs are enough? Signs would not have stopped their son from being thrown out of that ride.”

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In an unrelated incident, a 14-year-old girl broke her leg shortly before noon Friday when she stepped out of her wheelchair to board Space Mountain and twisted her foot. Disneyland quickly reported the incident, as required by law, but the state has no plans to investigate because the accident did not appear to be related to the operation of a ride, said Dean Fryer, spokesman for the California Division of Occupation Safety and Health, or Cal-OSHA.

Cal-OSHA inspectors, who oversee amusement parks, plan to interview the Arizona teenager injured on the Alice in Wonderland ride, Fryer said.

Anaheim police said the boy was dangling his leg outside the car when it became pinched between one of the ride’s caterpillar-shaped cars and a guardrail. State officials inspected the ride Thursday and recommended that Disneyland add the warnings before reopening the attraction.

Park officials told the state Thursday they had signs already printed as part of a safety campaign, Fryer said.

Inside each Alice in Wonderland car, two signs--one in the front seat and one in the back--now warn: “For your safety, remain seated with your hands, arms, feet and legs inside the vehicle. Supervise children.”

The signs include an illustration of two figures sitting with their arms and legs inside the car. A second picture, with a slash through it, depicts inappropriate behavior with figures hanging partly outside the car and standing up.

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Girardi said Disneyland must do more to acknowledge its safety risks. He said Disney has rejected his attempts at a settlement in the Roger Rabbit tragedy.

Disneyland was aware of problems on the Roger Rabbit ride, Girardi said, after a 13-year-old girl was injured in April when she got her foot wedged underneath a “taxicab.”

“You would think they would have done something about it,” he said. “You would think they would have fixed the ride.”

Girardi said Disneyland also was at fault in Brandon Zucker’s accident because ride operators loaded the largest person, Victoria Zucker, into the ride before her small sons, adding that Brandon would not have been tossed from the ride had he not been seated next to the car’s opening.

Parents and children put their trust in Disneyland, Girardi said.

“There is such great trust, everyone thinks they wouldn’t have a ride like this that wasn’t safe,” Girardi said. “I mean, this ride is called Roger Rabbit. If it’s not made for a 4-year-old, then who is it made for? But you can’t expect a 4-year-old to know the physical forces that he will be subjected to.”

Despite the new signs on the Alice in Wonderland ride, some park visitors said Friday that they didn’t notice the warnings. Most said they felt safe on Disneyland rides and blamed accidents on irresponsible guests.

“There’s a sign right in front of you that says, ‘Sit like this, don’t sit like that,’ ” said Kirk Hanson, 42, of La Crescenta, who noticed the warnings.

“I try to make my daughter pay attention to the signs, but with a 9-year-old or any-age child, it’s tough,” Hanson said.

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David Fackler’s foot was crushed between cars on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in 1998. His mother, Kathy, lobbied aggressively for a 1999 state law that requires parks to report injuries. The law also requires annual state inspections of rides.

Kathy Fackler says Disneyland means well by adding new signs, but the best way to improve safety is to publicize accidents.

“We need to build a public awareness that it is not magic,” she said. “It’s heavy machinery that you’re loading your kid onto, and you need to be respectful of it.”

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Correspondent Sean Kirwan contributed to this report.