Man killed on ropes course in Orlando, FL

[llkl12223]

This is super scary considering my brother, father and I were on that very ropes course just two hours before the incident happened. Being an engineering student and a rock climber I payed unusually close attention to the rigging procedures and the way that the rails connected to the harnesses. They both seemed to work fine to me. From what I observed that day this is how I can tell the mechanisms work. The sky rail works by taking a pair of grooved wheels that are attached to the harness connection and placing them on a pair of grooved rails in the actual zip line. Once it is connected and begins to slide down the rail the harness then disconnects from the sky trail portion of the structure and relies solely on the sky rail portion of the structure during the zip line. At the end of the zip line it reconnects to the sky trail structure and you pull yourself off the sky rail. It does take some user input to line everything up but it seemed to be fairly full proof,and once you got on the zip line, it didn't seem possible to pull yourself off. Its a real shame that it happened to such a new instillation. Thoughts and prayers go out to the family.

[jedimaster1227]

Artegon had enough problems on its own before this... I was there at the grand opening and even then, the place was relatively empty both in terms of vendors and guests. This situation can only hurt what was a damaged product before it ever opened.

Edited January 3, 2015 by jedimaster1227

[ioio]

Did we ever find out 100% what happened? :/

[robbalvey]

^ Not "exactly" down to the minute details, but Ropes Courses Inc did come out and say that it was a design/mechanical fault. (See the article a page back)