You remember your sister fainting, and her catastrophic accident. Hence your PTSD. It's understandable and very real.
Your sister recalls only her inspiring recovery. Hence her determined fearlessness.
2
Your fear of roller coasters may be irrational, but it is not unreasonable. Watching your baby sister get hit by a roller coaster was very traumatic, and no amount of "rational" discussion about structural engineering or the safety statistics of major amusement parks will change that. I bet that the more you about engineering and statistics, the more frightened you become.
I've found that the best way to combat "reasonable but irrational" fears of basically safe things is with an equally irrational booster. My advice: get a pair of lucky socks, and wear them on the roller coaster. (These cannot be just any pair of socks; these must be awesome socks that make you smile every time you even think about them. )
The next time you're in line for the roller coaster and that little voice starts worrying that you're going to fall off, you just tell that little voice that it won't happen, because you're wearing your lucky socks.
The logical part of your brain may know that this is complete nonsense, but the irrational part of your brain, which doesn't listen to logic anyway, will feel much better.
3
I actually don't think there's anything wrong with never going on a rollercoaster. I hate rides - always have. I learned early on (tweens) that I couldn't tolerate spinning or the plummeting sensation of a rollercoaster so I would hold my friends' purses and the buckets of popcorn while they went on rides. If you know something totally optional (like amusement park rides) makes you miserable, why do it?
However, since the author made a promise to her child, I am glad she was able to keep it.
4
To quote George Carlin: "Amusement parks are places where you pay them to almost kill you."
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@Johnny Stark Absolutely. I don't care about safety this and reinforced that, it's a false sense of security. The park is in the business to make money and they have good insurance.
So, people are pointing out that she wasn't injured due to an amusement park ride. True. But this happened in Kansas City, MO where a boy was decapitated at an amusement park a few years back. I don't think these rides are as safe as they are made out to be. Especially in red states.
6
I'm not sure why this story was published and advertised in the headline to sound as if a roller coaster ride had malfunctioned and injured her sister. Um, she fainted, and fell into the path of ... a roller coaster. That's bizarre but perhaps that should have been the title. I'm sure there are many victims who have stories about actually being tossed from or experienced calamity while being on a roller coaster, you could have printed instead.
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Fantastic illustration by Lucy Jones. I would love to have that as a print.
It's certainly far more dangerous to drive to and from and amusement park than to be in one.
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Amusement parks aren't, and perhaps never can be, "perfectly safe." The issue is are they safe enough, and if they become unsafe, can that be seen by operators before anyone is hurt.
3
I would not trust that amusement rides have been carefully engineered to be safe. I believe it has been responsibly reported elsewhere that accidents resulting from failures with these sorts of rides are too common.
2
The authors sister did not get injured on the ride. She ducked under the barrier and then fainted and was hit by a car. Had she obeyed the rules, she would not have been injured. Of course I am sorry she was but that doesn't make the ride itself unsafe. I have never gotten on a roller coaster but that is my choice. To make them sound unsafe in the headlines is unfair.
4
Actually, from the description in the article, there was no barrier, and so when her sister fainted and fell, she was hit by the oncoming cars. Not the fault of either sister, and thankfully, rides have barriers to protect people awaiting the rides now. Which doesn’t make the uninjured sister not scared, just safer. The traumatic brain injury the one girl suffered probably saved her from much in the way of memories of the event, making it easier for her to be more fearless. I don’t think this article is meant to be a condemnation of amusement park rides, more like an exploration into one woman’s fear and how she is handling it.
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@ExPatMX
Agree
It's the current subtitle, "would we be tempting fate to ride again", that makes this piece clickbait
I also take issue with the author's hopeless capacity for risk assessment, dominated as it is by tangential personal experience. So it would have been a tough read regardless, but the subtitle title and newspaper might be drawing in the wrong readership.
Perhaps this is best as a Facebook post where it could generate some thumbs
3
@ExPatMX If a person faints, after waiting on a line, perhaps for awhile and perhaps int he sun, it's their own fault? No other precautions are needed so a person who faints can't be hurt in this manner? Sorry, but that ride was indeed unsafe.
2
Clickbait NYT? The context makes it appear the author’s sister was injured by faulty or dangerous rides at an amusement park. In reality, she fainted in line. Many public transit lines throughout the US have no barrier between people and tracks, yet we do not see articles decrying their lack of safety. NYT, please vet the language on article summaries. I read this out of concern that there were safety issues at amusement parks. I am glad the author’s sister made a full recovery following her injury, and I am glad there is, in fact, safety issue at amusement parks to cause concern.
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@P The Times recently ran an article on the need for barriers in public trains systems, didn't it? People do notice these things.
I have to wonder if the sister's immunity to fear in these situations has to do with her amnesia of the actual event? (In most cases, the person who experiences the extreme trauma has at least partial amnesia of the event). Of course she'd recall the recovery and rehabilitation, but never went through the fearful waiting while not knowing the outcome, in the period when the surgery was to begin and finally end, as did the author of the piece.
I also wonder if the young girl, the 10 year old, is aware of what occurred? If not, I'd tell her, so she understands where her mom's fears are coming from. (Especially now they've "survived" the experience!).
8
When I was a kid in the 1970s and 80s, we glued platforms onto our sneakers so that we could ride the adult rides that required us to be 48 inches tall. The park staff must have known what was underneath the bell-bottom jeans that we would wear in 90 degree weather to stand in line under the brutal sun. Nobody seemed to care. I look now at the bodies of children who are 43 or 44 inches and shutter to think of them being whipped around on a roller coaster. I do think that we are not the brightest generation ever to walk the earth. So many reasons why.
6
@india I doubt the roller coaster operators knew you had rigged your shoes.
1
While I'm very sorry this happened to your sister, her injury had very little to do with roller coasters. She fainted while standing in line and fell in the path of a fast moving object. That object could have been a subway car, an automobile, a bicycle, a baseball or any number of other things.
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@Shauna Holiman
but "logic" (and of course you're right) has nothing to do with developing a phobia!
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@Shauna Holiman And we should take precautions wherever possible against this happening. Especially when the precautions are effective and cost little.
Beautiful. Thank you.
10
I hate amusement park rides. Thank God I’m a grown-up now and can just say no.
38
A great reminder that the witnesses to trauma can be as affected as the victim. Perhaps more.
Safety concerns are so much higher on everyone's awareness than they were in 1984. Those were the dark ages in terms of facility safety protocols. There is room to improve, and accidents still happen, but it is no longer 1984 at parks.
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@Cathy:
except, as stated by another poster above, the accident happened because the young girl fainted which could have happened and caused the same injuries anywhere.
7
@RLiss There really aren't moving roller coaster cars nearby in most of the places where people faint.