Disneyland visitor dies after riding the Haunted Mansion. Expert says theme park deaths are rare
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- A woman in her 60s suffered a medical episode while riding Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion on Monday and was pronounced dead at a hospital later that evening.
A Disneyland visitor who required medical attention after riding the theme park’s Haunted Mansion attraction died at an Orange County hospital on Monday.
Disneyland officials confirmed Wednesday that the patron required medical treatment and was taken to a hospital, but did not provide further details.
The news was broken by Disneyland influencer Matt Desmond.
Desmond wrote that the guest “had a heart attack on Haunted Mansion Holiday.” He noted that she didn’t respond when it was time to walk off the ride.
Anaheim police confirmed that fire and rescue units responded at 6:30 p.m. and found a woman in her 60s unresponsive. She had just finished riding the Halloween version of the Haunted Mansion, which combines characters from Tim Burton’s famed “The Nightmare Before Christmas” movie with the classic features of the iconic ride.
In the ride’s trademark attic scene, there’s still a tortured bride, but she’s never quite looked or acted like this.
Disneyland security performed CPR until paramedics arrived, according to Anaheim police Sgt. Matt Sutter. She was moved to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
The Orange County Sheriff-Coroner is investigating the cause of death.
There is no indication of an operating issue with the attraction, which reopened soon after, Sutter said in an email.
“This appears to be an unfortunate medical episode, and our thoughts go out the family,” Sutter wrote.
The slow-moving ride shuttles guests on “doom buggies,” which are seats that travel approximately one mile an hour. Dennis Speigel, founder and chief executive of the leisure and attractions consultant agency International Theme Park Services Inc, said the ride is more apt to cause unexpected naps than medical incidents.
A man died after falling from a multistory parking garage at Disneyland on Saturday night, Anaheim police said.
“I have to say that if you picked a ride at Disney, this or Small World would be the last type of ride you would expect to see something like this to happen,” he said. “These are the rides for great-grandmothers.”
Deaths at theme parks are rare, but not impossible. Speigel noted the 32-year-old man who died last month after riding a roller coaster at Universal Studios Epic Universe in Orlando.
He said that the death shouldn’t deter visitors because theme parks, particularly Disney and Universal, are subject to “daily, weekly and monthly inspections.”
In California, the Department of Industrial Relations oversees the safety of theme park rides.
“Transparency comes at the highest level for Disney,” Speigel said. “It’s much safer to ride Space Mountain or any ride at Disneyland for a month straight than to drive one day on the 405 Freeway.”
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
Senator Allen has put his money on fire mitigation and bringing stakeholders together in communities up and down the state to reduce their risk and stay insured. In this episode, Host Kate Cagle speaks with Allen about his plans.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito run the Latino vibe check — inspired by a newsletter from their colleague Carlos De Loera asking a simple but loaded question: Is there any advantage to being Latino in the United States?
