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..Vocabulary
you may need to look up,
try google images also:
to brag
a death toll
cf toll roads/highways/motorways/bridges/tunnels etc
a rite of passage
a wedgie
an atomic wedgie
road rash
freewheeling (literally and as a metaphor )
heyday
a/to belly-flop
a crash dummy aka a crash-test dummy
bumper, see:
bumper cars aka dodgem cars aka (usa) coney-island cars
cf car bumpers
in traction
a shred
to shred
shredded
shredded wheat breakfast cereal......
Polysemy:
ground , noun, sounds the same, with the same spelling, as ground, past participle of to grind
USA ground meatbeef/etc =UK minced meat/beef/etc aka mincemeat
check the semantic field of
grind ground grist, grinder, grindingwheel, the daily grind, grindstone, back to the grindstone , many idioms, to mill, a mill, meal, milled , miller, teeth, back teeth . a shred, to shred, shredded, rolled, etc
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The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever - Part 1 of 2 por insane-amusement-park........
.......http://mashable.com/2013/08/28/action-park/
Inside the World's Most Dangerous Amusement Park
By the time things enter the realm of legend, it can be difficult to divine what was true. To tell what actually happened.
"Action Park."
If you grew up near Northern New Jersey, the chances are pretty strong that the mere sight of those words is flooding your brain with feelings of dread, doom and possibly the memories of at least a few scars.
For the rest of you, here's the gist: In the years since it closed down in 1996,
Action Park has earned a reputation as the most insane — and possibly the most dangerous — amusement park that ever existed. A lawless land that was ruled by drunk teenage employees, frequented by even drunker teenage guests, and filled with rides that seemed to defy even the most basic notions of physics and common sense.
Let's put it this way: The park had a waterslide that went in a complete loop.
One more time: A waterslide. That. Went. In. A. Complete. Loop.
Like many adults who visited Action Park decades ago, I find it impossible not to look back and think that at least some of what I remember and have heard in the subsequent years is a product of the snowballing effect of time and legend. Sure, things weren't as rubber-coated and insurance-obsessed as they are today. But still...
And so, I got together with a documentary crew from the video site Dailymotion, and we set out to answer a simple question: It couldn't all be true... could it? No amusement park could have really been this insane. This incredible. This bizarre. And yes, this fun.
Turns out, it was.
"Every story that you hear, any legend that you hear about it — it's all true. This is a place that it actually happened," Andrew Mulvihill, son of Action Park founder Eugene Mulvihill, and a guy who spent much of his teenage years working at the park, told me.
In part one of our two-part video series on Action Park, we look at the rides and the riders that made it the most insane amusement park the planet has ever seen. Check back Thursday for part two, when we go even deeper into the legend and legacy of Action Park.
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The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever - Part 2 of 2 por insane-amusement-park**************************************************************************
This is the legend of Action Park.
There once was an amusement park so insane, so treacherous and dangerous, that, nearly two decades after it closed, anybody who ever stepped foot in it is left wondering whether their memories could possibly be true.
The insane rides that were supposedly designed by folks with little or no engineering or ride design experience. The volatile mix of inebriated underage employees and absolutely intoxicated underage visitors — the general sense of chaos and confusion.
The waterslide that went in a loop.
But was it all true?
In attempt to answer this question, I teamed up with a documentary crew from the video site Dailymotion, and we dug deep into the legend and legacy of the most infamous amusement park that ever existed.
In
part one of our video series, we looked at the insane rides and even more insane riders that filed the park. In part two, we look at the staff and brass in an effort to determine whether this really was a case of the lunatics running the
asylum.
Turns out, things were even crazier than we possibly could have imagined.
From the daily mail:
'It was like you were just in some crazy guy's back yard': Six deaths, countless injuries and bankruptcy... but the 'most insane amusement park in America' is making a return (fortunately, with a few adjustments)
- Action Park re-opened on June 15
- It was closed in 1996 amid personal injury lawsuits after six people died and countless were injured there
- A documentary was made about it called 'The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever'
- The park includes some old favorites as well as brand-new rides
PUBLISHED: 04:16 GMT, 29 June 2014 | UPDATED: 12:10 GMT, 29 June 2014
A New Jersey amusement park that was as famous for the many lawsuits brought against it as it was for its rides, with no fewer than six people losing their lives there and 110 people reported injuries in a single year.
Since it closed in 1996, Action Park became the stuff of urban legend and nostalgia, even inspiring a documentary called 'The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever.'
And as of June 14, Action Park is back, complete with a new attraction, the Zero G, which drops riders through a trapdoor and down a 100-foot-high slide, which Action Park's owners says is the tallest of its kind.
Scroll down for video
Notorious: The 'most insane amusement park ever,' Action Park is back in, well, action
Nostalgia: Children of the 1980s and '90s remember Action Park with equal parts fondness and fear
'At Action Park, it felt like you were in some crazy guy’s backyard,' Dave Schlussman, a 30-year-old from Greenpoint, told the New York Post.
'The rides defied any kind of procedure.'
The rural resort drew thousands of revelers everyday from 1978 until 1996 in spite of - or maybe because of - its freewheeling reputation for danger.
'We'd race some unsuspecting guy on the Alpine Slide,' said Dana Bornstein, 44, who worked at the park as a teenager in the 1980s.
'We'd be at the bottom and see the cart come down by itself. Next thing you know, they'd be bringing the guy to first aid.'
Bornstein was one of roughly 100 former employees who gathered for a reunion at the legendary water park on Saturday to celebrate its rechristening.
Action Park closed in 1996 and reopened two years later as Mountain Creek. Owners decided to switch back to the original name in an attempt to capitalize on the nostalgia - some might say notoriety - of its earlier heyday.
Safety first: The newly-opened Action Park adheres to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs regulations
One of the first waterparks in the country, Action Park opened in 1978, sometimes introducing new attractions almost as soon they were invented.
'Pretty much any backyard inventor with a crazy idea knew this was the place to try it out,' said Bill Benneyan, president of Mountain Creek Resort, which owns Action Park.
One such ride was only in action for a month before it was shut down. The Cannonball Loop was a water slide with a 360-degree loop at the end.
A man who claims his father built the slide told Buzzfeed that stories about dismembered crash-test dummies are completely true.
'The story about the dummies is completely true! They used the dummies to test several of the rides at the park and every time a dummy came off the ride dismembered they would try it again until it stayed in one piece, then they would pay someone to test it!' he said.
The Cannonball Loop: The slide with it's 360-degree loop was short-lived, in action only a month before it caused too many injuries and was shut down
Fun for the whole family: Despite its safety track record, Action Park is remembered with fondness by many children of the '80s and '90s
Matt Weismantel, who worked at the park from 1979 to 1984 recounted watching operators turn on the wave pool (also known as the 'grave pool', at the time one of the first in the country, for the first time. He heard a scream and saw a woman clinging to the side of the wall, her feet above the water.
'She didn't realize that when the wave went through, there'd be nothing underneath her,' Weismantel said.
The park earned a reputation for danger and six people died there from 1980 to 1987.
News accounts from the New Jersey Herald in the 1980s reported hundreds of lawsuits in little more than a few years. The Alpine Slide was the site of 26 head injuries and 14 fractures in a two-year period.
Executives at the newly renamed Action Park hope they can resurrect that reputation for risk without the actual danger. The Alpine Slide and a seldom-used waterslide known as the Cannonball Loop have been removed.
Reporter Anna Gilligan recently took the plunge on the High Anxiety ride and lived to tell the tale
In a tour of the park on Saturday, Benneyan stressed that the state inspects rides at the beginning and end of the season, plus conducts periodic checks during the season.
Some of the former employees expressed a sense of nostalgia for a time when kids and teenagers roamed free and a little bit of danger was associated with growing up.
'When you are the first to do something, you do it without regulation,' said Amy Rude, 39, who worked at the park from 1990 to 1995. 'Action Park is from a moment in time that can never happen again.'
Former park employee Mike Donahan, 40, remembers seeing wipeouts on the Alpine Slide that left kids with scrapes severe enough to require a trip to the first-aid office but not immobilizing enough to keep them from soon returning to the same ride.
'They'd be bleeding and jump right into the pools,' he said. 'I don't even know how much chlorine they put in the pool.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2673751/It-like-just-crazy-guys-yard-Six-deaths-countless-injuries-criminal-fraud-charges-worlds-dangerous-theme-park-making-return-fortunately-adjustments.html#ixzz363mvmtdy Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook................
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BuzzFeed
1. Action Park was pain for the whole family. This dude’s whole lineage suffered…
“Me: sprained ankle walking on the wet rocks.
My dad: Broken nose - in the dark cave of the river rapids ride he got knocked in the air and into my face.
My friend’s dad: 20 or so stitches from flying off of the alpine slide.”
2. And this story reads like a real-life Final Destination movie.
“I was there 3 times when I was 9 or 10 - I left 2 times in an ambulance.
The 1st time was broken ribs on the ‘Tarzan Swing’ (my dad had to jump into the water to save me - NOT the ride operator.)
Next was the alpine slide, my car had no brakes- 1st big turn I flew over the slide and into the grass - my WHOLE right side was cut up - and then had to walk the whole way down crying and dripping blood.
They kept sending us free passes to go back - so we went again - I was EXTREMELY cautious - only went on 1 ride - a kayak where you simply paddled around a sort of lazy river. I LOVED IT and it was safe!!! The VERY next day the ride was closed because someone fell off their kayak and was electrocuted by the electric currents. Never went back again - too afraid.”
3. At Action Park,sometimes you had to crawl your way out of a dark hole.
“The ‘water’ tube that goes underground and is supposed to eject you into a freezing lake. Well there wasn’t enough water in the tube and I only weighed about 57 pounds at the time. I went “sliding” down the tube, but got stuck in the middle of the tube, essentially in the dark. Everyone on the outside of the tube kept waiting for me to shoot out - but after a few minutes they realized I wasn’t coming out. I had suffered abrasions to the back of my legs due to the friction induced stop which was caused by the dry tube. I eventually turned myself around in the tube started crawling on all fours towards the opening, but was too scared to jump into the water. So after some hesitation, I just sort of fell out like a crumpled, demoralized child, and hit the freezing water. I never went on it again.”
4.The staffers got hurt too!
“Staff, after/before hours would take the single tubes from the other rides on the river, daisy chain them and fly down the damn thing. One time the guy at the very end couldn’t hold on, flipped off his tube and wrapped his poor body around a tree. Oops.”
5. Injuries apparently included but were not limited to ELECTROCUTION
“My mother was a pediatric nurse in the local hospital, so she would get all the injuries severe enough to be admitted to the hospital: Lots of kids in traction (broken legs), near drownings (especially those city kids in the wave pool) and even an electrocution from a malfunctioning pump.”
6. Diet camps brought their kids there and had them jump off of cliffs.
“I remember a 450 lb. 15 year old camper doing a belly flop off the cliff into the pool and his stomach and chest being purple and red for weeks- and he was African American.”
7. It also had a waterslide that went IN A COMPLETE UPSIDE-DOWN LOOP
“The loop was downright dangerous. Each one of my friends came out holding the back of their heads because it slammed into the slide while looping.”
8. A COMPLETE, UPSIDE-DOWN LOOP
“The looping water slide was just
constructed without any real design, the first person through the slide lost his front teeth, then they decided they needed water at the top of the loop. When most of the water slides were built, the plans were only used as a guide, they were not followed precisely, leading to all sorts of issues when the slide went into service.”
“At some point they built a trap door by the loop so they could
retrieve injured, drowning riders, because the thought never occurred to them in the original planning.”
9. This can’t be true, can it? Tell me it isn’t real.
“
Memories of a bloody nose and a fractured finger says that it was open. but to be honest, i probably suffered a concussion so my memory may have been a little foggy.”
10. The Alpine Slide was the sort of ride that could FUSE YOU TO YOUR T-SHIRT
“I remember my dad flipping off the cart on the Alpine Slide and sliding down the ‘tube’ himself. His T shirt melted on to his skin from the friction… yukky.”
11. ALWAYS WEAR A SHIRT, THOUGH
“My one friend decided that brakes — and shirts — were for sissies. About halfway down, he and the sled parted ways, so he slid down the track for a few feet. I’m not sure than any of the hair on his legs ever grew back, and his back is probably still one big scar.”
12. Losing skin was just part of the experience
“My
brother worked there and peeled a crazy amount of skin off his leg on the alpine slide, if I remember right he said his leg ended up under the scooter somehow.”
“Walking around the park you would think you were in a
ward for some epidemic. Every third person you saw had a nasty red welt on their leg or arm or elbow.”
13. How many fun parks leave you with a leg that looks like “ground beef”?? At least one. Action Park.
“On the Alpine Slide, an idiot who went down just ahead of my brother lost his flip-flop halfway down. Instead of pulling his sled off the track when he stopped to retrieve it, he left the sled on the track and walked up the hill. My brother, coming down full force, panicked after seeing his empty sled, yanked his brake and toppled to the side. When I got to the bottom his leg looked like ground beef with bad road rash.”
14. The phrase “no skin off my back” had WEIGHT at Action Park
“My younger brother was flying down the Alpine slide and I was gaining on him. he turned around and floored it. Now way would he let me catch him. Near the end he realized he was going to fly into people and crash. He pulled back on the brake….I don’t remember full details but his entire back scrapped against the alpine slide. It literally ripped the skin off his back.”
15. Some theme parks leave guests with souvenir keychains, Action Park left many with souvenir scars.
“I had a classmate get a scrape on his arm with the alpine slide. It was literally
almost 2 ft long.”
“Alpine slide was a great way to
defoliate your skin. Some of the cement tracks are still visible. There’s lots of DNA up there in them hills!”
“…the most
surreal road rash I’ve ever seen. The friction was severe enough that the f’er seemingly cauterized itself as it happened so only thousands of tiny beads of blood percolated up.”
But the battle wounds were worth it: “I just looked down at
my 20 year old Alpine Slide scars, and realized that it was worth every inch of scorched concrete ‘road rash.”
16. You weren’t even safe if you WANTED to go slow.
“…the person they sent down 15 seconds after you would inevitably
outweigh you by 200 lbs and be legally drunk, so they would slam into you like a Mack truck.”
17. This guy is still having back problems.
“I am proud to say that I survived the Alpine Slide even after a bad accident and being taken away on a stretcher. I recall hitting the sled in front of me, flying off the track and I kept on rolling just missing from hitting my head on these huge rocks. My bad back to this day started because of that accident.”
18. Uhhhhhh……
“I remember goin to action park as a kid and im now 37yrs old and my most vivid memory was waiting for my dad and brother to come down the alpine slide for what seemed like hours and my brother came down but not my dad cause the car he was in flipped because of some kind of build up on the track and we had to rush him to a hospital cause he cruised the bone in his ankle and had to have surgery and pins put in and was bruised from head to toe and is disabled from it so thanks action park!! great memories!!!”
19. Because the speed and friction aren’t terrifying enough, the bacterial water gave this lady HEP A.
“I only went once and once was all you needed. There was a water slide that got me a week in the hospital. Turns out the bacteria in the water gave me hepatitis A. The good thing is I am told I can never catch hep A again.”
20. Even the bumper boats were snapping tibias in half…
“I remember one time I went the bumper boats were really small, so tall people’s legs hung over the front of the boat. Bet you can guess what happened next…yup call the meat wagon to take away another broken leg!”
21. At Action Park you could just FALL RIGHT OUT OF THE WATERSLIDES
“The kamikaze slides were insane. They quite literally went straight down. The one time I rode it, I hung down off the “pull up” - like start bar with my feet dangling; lifted my head up to see if I could see the slide. I could not. I pulled myself back up to regroup and then released. I came completely off the slide; hit the safety net, which then propelled me back onto the slide and then I proceeded to free fall to the end.”
22. Concussions!
“Several things come to mind:
1. Friend’s mom breaking wrist on Alpine Slide…very cool to watch.
2. Heavy man cant hold the Tarzan swing, falls off the dock.
3. Concussion from dropping off 30-ft cliff.”
23. WHAT? NO. STOP IT.
“One favorite story is a kid who crashed a Formula One racer (or maybe a Lola Car) and his two front teeth were dangling out of his bloody mouth by his braces.”
24. Ambulances in the area were known as the ACTION PARK EXPRESS.
“My memories are of the Wallkill Valley Ambulances speeding down rt.94 towards the park every day and sometimes 3x a day during the summer! We used to call it the ambulances ‘The Action Park’ express!”
25. Think only the rule-breakers got hurt? WRONG.
“I eventually broke my leg simply by going down a water slide, dutifully following all of the rules. I attributed my maiming to the fact that I was wearing a wetsuit and perhaps achieved rocket speed because I was somehow more slippery.”
26. The standard ride testing/design process merely warded off DISMEMBERMENT
“My father built the Alpine Slide, the Cannonball, as well as many others. The story about the dummies is completely true! They used the dummies to test several of the rides at the park and every time a dummy came off the ride dismembered they would try it again until it stayed in one piece, then they would pay someone to test it!”
27. The New Jersey summer weather was nice… when it wasn’t RAINING RACCOONS.
“The best / most dangerous ride there was Surf Hill… … if you really knew what you were doing, it was really easy to skip over the “catch pond” at the end and go rocketing into the wall. Many many back injuries up there. I remember one season, a racoon fell out of a tree on to surf hill….
ah… the fun.”
28. It probably didn’t help that EVERYONE WAS WASTED
29. “I was covered in blood.”
“I actually flipped off the slide… and slid down the concrete, shredding the skin on one side.
I was covered in blood.”
“I spent every summer there as a kid. I remember seeing a
puddle of blood on the steps up from the river raft ride.”
30. Fall off your raft? It’s right into a cave of jagged rocks for you.
“The Colorado River was great. You would fly down the first drop and then the raft would hit this fork in the course dead on every time. The raft would fold up like a taco and you were lucky if you were able to stay in the raft at this point. The ones who fell out got swept into the dark cave with raging rapids and sharp jagged rocks everywhere to be cut up all over your body. Good times.”
31. The free enemas weren’t openly advertised but they were widely known.
“That huge water slide was an unexpected
‘enema’. Lol”
“We always did it head first (hands out in front of you). Saved you from the water
enema that you would get going the way they made the customers do it.”
“As a frequent visitor you learned quickly to exchange the bikini for a wetsuit because of the insane wedgies and, well, complimentary
enemas that came with each ride.”
32. “He needed BRAIN SURGERY.”
“When I was a kid I visited Action Park a few times. One of those times my step-brother came out of a water tube wrong and hit his head on the floor of a pool. He needed brain surgery.”
33. Got your nose!
“I busted my nose on a water slide. They sent me down and my dad who was obviously heavier goes faster and then they sent him down and then CRASH blood everywhere.”
34. Action Park was also known as Traction Park for a reason.
“I was only there once, and left with a heavily-bleeding, foot-long by 9-inch wide abrasion on the back of my thigh after being dumped out of an inner-tube ride near the beginning of the ride, being trapped UNDER the upside-down tube, and completing the last 75% of the ride with my thigh being scraped along the rough bottom of the waterway while nearly drowning (still under the tube, in the dark).”
35. The wave pool’s nickname was THE GRAVEPOOL
“Most places make their wavepools family friendly and fun.
Action Park had a very Darwinian wavepool that forced the lifeguards to get just as much action. I think they waited until somebody took their 4th gulp of water before rushing to help, otherwise they would have been better off just remaining in the pool.”
How could such a place exist? Watch Part 1 of the Dailymotion/Mashable doc on Action Park here.
And that didn’t even cover the deaths. There were a few. Thus…
Watch Part 2, chronicling the park’s closing.
Ok, now share your scar photos. This post needs more scar photos. Bring it, Jersey.
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