Reply #15: with ya all the way, CO [View All]

[iverglas]

... except on that roller coaster bit.

My dad was the first person to be reported in the medical literature for suffering a subdural haematoma as a result of a whiplash-type motion on a roller coaster (big amusement park in Ohio). He had to have neurosurgery to relieve the pressure on his brain from the internal bleeding. (Not in Ohio, fortunately; at home in Canada, where he was when the pain drove him to go to the hospital a couple of days later.)

There have now been deaths recorded from that type of injury.

I just like to spread the word. The new breed of roller coasters actually is dangerous, and definitely not just to middle-aged men.

http://webmd.lycos.com/content/article/27/1728_60387
(That's my dad in there! -- and while he wasn't counted by Markey as "in the US", that's where the injury occurred. And he really didn't quite do what the doctor described him as doing in the NEJM: going on the same roller coaster 12 times or some such thing.)

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who is the ranking Democrat on a congressional consumer safety panel, says the technology in the newest roller coasters doesn't take into consideration how much force could be hazardous. While he admits the number of such injuries is small -- only 15 cited in medical journals worldwide from 1966 to 1999 with only five in the U.S. -- most have occurred since 1994. Markey's office says most of the injuries were in the nature of brain bruises and were treatable.

Inzitari says that while the numbers are small now, he expects them to climb. "I believe the industry should warn users about this potential risk."