Disneyland Waited 5 Minutes to Call 911

Disneyland called 911 five minutes after Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin stopped with 4-year-old Brandon Zucker trapped underneath one of the ride cars, according to newly released details of the accident.

State investigators said for the first time Wednesday that the ride stopped six seconds before 10:14 p.m. The first call to paramedics came at 10:19 p.m., according to Anaheim Fire Department records of the Sept. 22 accident. They arrived at the park four minutes later, records show.

It is unclear what impact five minutes might have had on Brandon, who was not breathing and did not have a pulse when he was freed from underneath the ride. He remains in critical condition in a coma at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

“The longer you are without oxygen, the worse the outcome is,” Dr. Henry Cryer, director of trauma at the UCLA Medical Center, said Wednesday. “If you are getting none it doesn’t take very long before you get irreversible damage.”

Anaheim Fire Chief Jeff Bowman on Wednesday could not say whether the five minutes it took to call paramedics was appropriate. Cryer also said that without more information about the circumstances in this case, it would be impossible for him to comment on whether Disneyland should have called for paramedics sooner.

However, people who were in line for the Roger Rabbit ride that night have previously complained about the amount of time it took for medical personnel to arrive to free Brandon and administer CPR.

One witness, Gregory C. Kammerer, told police that he was so upset by the delay of the arrival of medical personnel to help the little boy that he later went to Disneyland City Hall to complain. Kammerer and others pushed past ride operators to try to help Brandon’s frantic father, who begged people standing in line to come and help him free his son.

Another witness, Teresa Reed of Oregon, said it seemed the employees were more concerned about crowd control than in providing comfort or aid to the Zuckers. Disneyland officials maintain that the ride operators followed the park’s emergency procedures.

Disneyland officials would not comment on Wednesday on the five minutes that it took to call 911.

“That’s all part of the investigation, and I’m not at liberty to discuss that right now,” said Ray Gomez, Disneyland spokesman.

Disneyland officials told Anaheim dispatchers in the 911 call that the accident was serious and initially called for “heavy rescue” equipment. They later canceled that request after maintenance workers pulled the taxi cab off the boy. When paramedics arrived at the ride, Disneyland medics were performing CPR. Anaheim paramedics took over and opened the boy’s airway. He had a weak pulse when he arrived at UCI Medical Center.

It remains unclear how long Brandon was trapped before Disneyland maintenance workers were able to free him and how long it took for the ride to shut down.

On Wednesday, Disneyland and the Anaheim Fire Department said they will meet to review the park’s emergency response procedures.

Gomez said the meeting was prompted by concerns surrounding an earlier, separate accident at the park. Nine people were injured in the July 31 derailment of the Space Mountain roller coaster.

Anaheim Fire Department Capt. Scott Roberts filed a report saying that Disneyland did not fully reveal the scope of the Space Mountain accident until 10 minutes after paramedics were on the scene. That hindered Anaheim’s efforts to treat the injured, they contend.

“It is worth noting that in my opinion and the opinions of my crew that Disneyland employees tried to keep this incident as ‘stealthy’ as possible,” Roberts wrote in a report released this week.

Roberts wrote that he began the process of extricating a woman’s foot from the bottom of the roller coaster car. “Approximately 10 minutes into this operation I was informed by engineer Galaz that there were four additional patients that Disney personnel were attending to on the ground and that the three people on the car with our patient were also complaining of medical issues.”

Roberts said that firefighters also overheard Disney employees congratulating each other for keeping information about the accident off Disneyland’s radio system.

In the initial 911 call, a Disneyland employee did not say that park guests were trapped on Space Mountain. Rather, the tape shows, she said: “Kind of a slow night until now.”

She later joked, “We were just saying, ‘We haven’t had the big red truck.’ ”

The employee reported that a 30-year-old woman in the Space Mountain attraction suffered a foot injury. The ride had derailed, coming to an abrupt stop on the tracks. The passengers, including the injured, were trapped on the ride for at least 30 minutes.

Bowman, the Anaheim fire chief, said Roberts raised the issue with his superiors, who contacted Disneyland officials and reported their concerns.

“Our operations people promptly called Disneyland and shared the problem . . . and we haven’t had a problem since,” Bowman said.

But Gomez said that Disneyland only became aware of Roberts’ concerns this week.

“We were just made aware of them, and since we work very closely with Anaheim officials we agreed to meet to discuss these concerns to see if we need to make any changes to our procedures,” Gomez said.

Bowan said the review is not in response to any concerns the department has with the theme park’s handling of emergencies, but rather in an effort to improve communication with Disneyland officials before the opening of Disney’s newest theme park, California Adventure, in February.