• In The Wild Testing Blog
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     CANNONBALL LOOP WATERSLIDE - ACTION PARK

    In recent years, ride engineers and safety specialists have managed to design gravity-defying and looping waterslides that are safe, fun, and reliable. None of these people were available (or asked to help) during the summer of 1985, when Action Park unveiled the waterslide that came to define the park until the day it closed.

    Ironically, the park’s most famous feature was so dangerous (employees were offered $100 apiece to “test” the slide after a crash test dummy exited the bottom minus its head) that it was only operational for a month after its opening, then a handful of semi-secret unannounced events that the state’s Carnival Amusement Ride Safety Board was kept in the dark about.

    Despite unusually attentive and detailed safety instructions from the least-inept members of the Action Park staff, many people emerged the loop with hurt backs and broken noses—except for those that didn’t emerge at all, getting stuck at the top of the loop and requiring rescue.