Personal Injury Law

Family Sues Indiana Amusement Park After Injury on Tea Cup Ride

By Michael

The family of a five-year-old boy filed a personal injury lawsuit against an Indianapolis indoor amusement park after the boy was severely injured on the mini tea cup ride.

Dennis Jennings and Antoinette Marion said their son Denzel Jennings suffered a fractured skull, among other injuries, after riding a mini-tea cup ride at the Xscape amusement park. He is now in a chemically-induced coma, according to the local Indianapolis NBC affiliate, WTHR.

?There’s nothing that you can really do to ease the pain from seeing your child sitting in the hospital like this,? Dennis Jennings said.

The lawsuit claims negligence against the Xscape park and Zoom Entertainment, who own the park. Within the complaint, the family says the park did not ?reasonably and properly ? inspect, test, maintain and operate the teacup ride.? The claim further alleges that staff members at the park were not observing the ride carefully enough.

Attorney Tom Doehrman told WTHR that witnesses can say they saw something malfunction with the ride.

?It shouldn’t move so fast, that his head actually, according to eyewitnesses, hit three times, hard enough to fracture his skull,? Doehrman said. ?There’s some evidence that the cars would actually scrape against one another as they turned.?

State investigators said they have not found any proof of mechanical failure within the rides that might have led to Denzel?s injuries.

?At this time, the inspections that have occurred on the tea cup ride have not shown any type of mechanical issue that would have contributed to the young man’s accident,? Indiana Department of Homeland Security spokesperson John Erickson said.

Indiana State Fire Marshall Jim Greeson said only cosmetic violations were found on rides, such as cracks in fiberglass, but nothing considered life threatening. Greeson also said the tea cup ride was set to rotate the correct number of revolutions per minutes to be considered safe, according to WTHR.

The state DHS division, who is responsible for regulating and oversight of entertainment centers such as Xscape, did find out that the park was operating without a proper permit. While the park did have permits for individual rides, some of those were in violation as well.

The park was allowed to reopen on April 1st, under the condition that firefighters are on hand during operating hours to make sure the rides are functioning safely.

Representatives of Xscape did not comment on the injury lawsuit, but did offer their prayers for Denzel through a statement.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on April 17, 2010 (boomark / email).