Maticus

Here is a cool site with even more pictures http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

Two things: 1. This is very, very sad and I feel very bad for the family. I look forward to hearnig about the girl's recovery, and personally, I hope some prosecution is brought to the ride op for negligence. 2. Robb and Elissa were right. --Robb "Why do so many people doubt us?" Alvey Can't fathom how the operators did not notice this. Sad this accident was easily avoidable.

Been watching this thread since Sunday night. I have a little bit of insight into the SCAD towers as I worked at Zero Gravity in Dallas when it was first opened. From looking at the video posted on page 9 it looks like Terminal Velocity is the same system as Nothing but Net in Dallas. How the one in Dallas works: The net system is connected to the same cable as the cage the riders ride up in. If you pause the video at 1:29 you can see the 4 metal bars with the wires/bungee cords attached. The cage will go up about about 50-75 ft before the net/tubes will rise. The tubes should be raised all the way to cross bars of the tower structure. As the Ride goes higher it will stretch the bungee cords out some. It is both the person in the cage and on the grounds job to make sure the net is raised all the way, and it is very easy for the person on the ground to check because they just need to look at the tubes and make sure they are all they way up. The ground operator would then let the person in the cage know that the net is position with a hand signal. The Drop master would also being verifying that the cage is at the appropriate height using visual cues on the tower. If everything is in position the actual distance is 99 ft from the bottom of the cage to the net. (we actually got a tape measure out and measured the drop). I've never been to Wisconsin Dells/Terminal Velocity so any of this could be different and I haven't worked at Zero Gravity since '05, so anything could have changed in the ride design since that time. The video posted on page 3 or 4?, that is a scary video as that net does not appear to be all the way up. In the second video where it looks like the operator is looking at her cell phone, it looks to me like she told the other operator to stop as the riders had not been secured to the cage to prevent them from falling out (At least I hope that is what is happening). At zero gravity the drop master would secure the rider to the cage and then it was the ground operators job to make sure that this was actually done to prevent any accidents.