During its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s,
New Jersey's Action Park
earned a reputation as the
stupidest and most dangerous amusement park that ever existed.
The park, which opened in 1978, was known as lawless territory,
run by drunken teenage employees
and frequented by even more drunken teenage patrons.
With slides that defy physics and rides that encourage risky behavior,
injuries at the park were a daily occurrence, according to former employees.
"Class Action Park" is an HBO documentary created, in large part, by interviewing former employees and visitors who recall, with great nostalgia, the wild fun and extreme danger of the park.
Action Park.
One of the most dangerous "amusement park" rides.
Action Park: the amusement park where dying was an option
Most of the youngsters who came to this amusement park came away with cuts, burns, and concussions that caused them temporary pain.
However, several died.
The park was designed and managed in accordance with two of founder Gene Mulvihill's core beliefs:
people should have the right to have unlimited fun and adventure, and they should take responsibility for their own safety.
Mulvihill, a former Wall Street stockbroker, did not believe in insurance and dragged out lawsuits against the park, of which there were over a hundred, refusing to settle.
In addition, Mulvihill engaged in many illegal financial activities.)
Action Park.
Several people died in the park during the 1980s.
The danger, according to Mulvihill, was part of the fun, and when employees suggested safety measures to reduce risk, the owner flatly rejected them.
Action Park: The Death Games
"Action Park was a place where death was tolerated as a game
," says Esther Larsson, whose 19-year-old son George died in 1980 after riding the park's alpine slide.
With a sled, the riders traversed the steep concrete track with a cane that often broke.
The attraction was so dangerous that, according to the documentary,
photos of bloody users greeted people at the top.
Action Park.
A place where death was viewed as fun.
Other victims drowned in an attraction called the
Tidal Wave Pool
, nicknamed the "grave pool", which featured a "death zone" manned by a lifeguard in the "death chair", according to the documentary.
During the kayak experience,
a man died after falling out of his canoe and being electrocuted by an "underground electrical system" malfunction.
A company called
Great American Recreation
owned the park, and its creator, Eugene Mulvihill, was an unusual businessman who gave form to its "anything goes" ethos and modified the rides while they were under construction to make them " more dangerous".
Action Park's "Extreme" car track.
Mulvihill, known as "Uncle Gene" to his young employees, designed one of the park's deadliest rides:
the tooth-cracking, cut-inducing Cannonball Loop
, drawing "a circle on a cocktail napkin" and "hiring local welders to get ridden," according to Class Action Park.
After various lawsuits and complications, the park finally closed in 1996.
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