Boy Critically Hurt on Ride at Disneyland

A 4 1/2-year-old boy was in critical condition Saturday with injuries to the torso suffered at Disneyland when he was trapped beneath a car on Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. It was the second time someone had been injured on the ride this year.

Disneyland officials would not release details of how the accident occurred.

“That’s being investigated,” Disneyland spokesman Ray Gomez said. “Until the investigation is complete, it would be pure speculation on my part.”

Director John Howard of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which is investigating the accident, said the youngster was riding with relatives, including his mother, when he slipped free of a restraining bar and got stuck beneath the moving car.

“Our information is that the child’s mom was sitting next to the child,” said Howard, whose agency was alerted to the accident by Disneyland officials at 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

Disneyland representatives said the boy was injured near the beginning of the ride. An unidentified park employee told The Times that the child apparently fell from the passenger side of the car while trying to retrieve a fallen toy, then became wedged underneath the vehicle. Modeled after a cartoon version of a taxicab, the cars have steering wheels on the left side, with openings to enter on the right.

The employee said young children usually sit behind the wheel, but in this instance the mother took the wheel and the youngster was seated next to the opening.

Dean Fryer, a spokesman for Cal/OSHA, said the boy was riding next to his mother, with his father and grandfather behind.

An Anaheim police officer stationed at the park was notified of the incident at 10:15 p.m. The victim, whom Anaheim police and Disneyland officials would not identify, was revived by paramedics and taken to UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, where he was reported in critical condition Saturday in the pediatric intensive care unit.

Family members at the hospital declined to give any information about the boy except that he was still in critical condition. “All we want is our child back safe,” one relative said.

Anaheim Fire Department Division Chief Kent Mastain said the boy was near death when rescuers arrived and had lost a substantial amount of blood. He said the boy suffered a lacerated liver, damage to the diaphragm and numerous bruises.

The ride is one of the park’s more popular attractions and is part of its FastPass program, which allows park-goers to reserve ride times. It carries patrons in spinning simulated taxicabs through a park version of Toontown, based on the movie “Who Killed Roger Rabbit.”

At the park Saturday, the ride was closed and employees turned away would-be riders, telling them that an investigation was underway into how the boy had been injured.

In April, a 13-year-old park visitor suffered minor foot injuries on the same ride when she jumped out of a moving car to retrieve a stuffed animal and became stuck.

Nine people suffered minor injuries July 31 when a wheel apparently malfunctioned on the Space Mountain roller coaster, jarring the cars to a sudden stop.

Fryer said investigators spent about seven hours at the park Saturday and would return Monday. They were unable to talk with the boy’s parents.

“Our understanding is that there were not any other witnesses,” said Fryer, adding that investigators intend to interview ride operators.

Anaheim Police Lt. Joe Vargas said the ride’s “safety mechanism” was tested. “Everything seemed to be operating normally,” he said.

Opened in January 1994, the Roger Rabbit attraction is an updated version of simple indoor rides in the dark, such as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Peter Pan’s Flight.

Amusement park safety has been a recurring political issue as the numbers of deaths and injuries nationwide have increased along with the popularity of such parks.

Nine people have died in attraction-related incidents at Disneyland since the park opened in 1955. The most serious incident at the park occurred on Christmas Eve 1998, when a man was killed and two others--his wife and a park employee--injured after a metal cleat pulled free from the sailing ship Columbia as the vessel docked. Subsequent reports concluded that the employee had not been properly trained to operate the ride.

Wiley Aitken, a Santa Ana lawyer representing the family in the Columbia accident, said the case has not been resolved.

That incident--and revelations that Disneyland officials had cleaned up the site before local police investigated--helped fuel calls in Sacramento for a regulatory crackdown on amusement parks.

The state adopted a law last fall requiring annual inspections of rides and establishing safety guidelines and reporting procedures for accidents. Gov. Gray Davis signed the bill into law late last year, but its implementation has been stalled by industry objections to some details, including what types of incidents must be reported and how inspections should be performed.

*

Times staff writers Robin Fields, Jerry Hicks, Brady MacDonald, Monte Morin, E. Scott Reckard and David Reyes, and correspondents Renee Moilanen and Theresa Moreau, contributed to this story.

* Editor’s note: An article on C1 about Disney’s soon-to-open California Adventure theme park was printed before the Friday night accident at the main park was reported.

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Accident at Disneyland

State investigators were inspecting a Disneyland rideafter a 4-year-old boy was trapped and critically injured under a car on Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin.

Sources: Intellectual Property Network, United StatesPatent Office

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los AngelesTimes