Fair season is here and by now most carnivals have gotten into a comfortable pattern with setting up and tearing down and moving the show form spot to spot with all the employees either learning what they are doing or remembering how much hard work is involved in doing what they love.

The carnival life is a very hard life and not for the faint of heart I guess. My Grandfather Avery H. Wheelock used to say that the “carnival business builds character, if you don’t believe me look at the characters around here”. My Grandfather was a great man and taught us all a great deal about the business in little ‘ole upstate New York. Some of you who have visited the Showmen’s Museum in Gibsonton have seen his first ride set up inside. The Conderman Ferris Wheel that slowly turns inside the building once played Fireman’s Field days in upstate New York and for several years when I was a kid was set up on our front lawn with Santa and Frosty the Snowman riding in opposite seats, lit up for Christmas decorations. Those were the days right — well times change and so does the way we learn things.

Learning about the great outdoor amusement business is what I’ve been doing my whole life, and I enjoy teaching others who want to learn about how to make our industry better. I believe that is why I look forward to sharing these articles with the readers of the Safety Corner and this magazine monthly.

So, let’s talk about something we can all learn from. There have been a few incidents that have made national news recently and I wanted to touch on a few things that we can learn from them. By now everyone has seen the pictures and video of a roller coaster with a cracked upright support column. I would like to say that the industry is going to be better at so many things because of this incident.

Thankfully no one was injured, and it has since been repaired, and by the time this article is printed, will probably be operational again. This is a sign of a great operator and a great manufacturer working together for the greater good of the industry.

I’ve been performing Amusement Park Inspections for many years and have walked or climbed on many different types of tracks, looking for potential areas of concern. I am sure that what everyone has seen has opened some eyes to maybe performing more than just an annual or semi-annual track inspection. I teach the Inspection Tools Class at several Industry Safety Seminars and one tool that has been discussed more and more in recent years is the use of drones to perform visual inspections of hard to get to locations.

I believe drone inspections will be something that we see a lot more of to assist in locating potential issues, followed by close physical inspection of areas in question. In some cases, it is not possible to use a drone to do the inspection such as a Skycoaster flight cable top side inspection, you must physically grab hold of the shackle and test the bushing to look for wear, a drone currently can’t do that but maybe someday it will.

I think that we will see more and more demand for companies to be using these different inspection techniques to identify potential indications and help reduce the possibility of an incident like we saw in the news. I think that if we can learn from this incident that we need to think of more ways to make inspections easier, it will make us all that much better in what we do.

There was another incident that caught a lot of attention with a Ring of Fire becoming stuck during operation. I believe that we may learn from that incident as well, and again thankfully, I understand from reading about it that no one was injured. The ride manufacturer did release a Safety Alert shortly after related to non-OEM equipment mounted inside the track area.

I have seen all kinds of lighting packages added onto these rides over the years and many different Flashers or transformers for the new low voltage lights. I do not want to discuss details that I am not familiar with. I only bring this up in this article to discuss what we can learn from it. We should practice the what if scenarios and have emergency action plans. I have taught an emergency evacuation class along with an industry leader in promoting Safety, Mr. Jeff Alberts. In the class we talk about getting the local fire department at the fair to come out with their ladder trucks and practice evacuating people from a ride. Get your employees trained on how to secure a vehicle from moving before attempting to evacuate the guests. Have written procedures with pictures of the tools needed to open restraints and how to use those tools. Having laminated evacuation process pages posted at the ride will save time and make the incident far less stressful for everyone involved.

I think that we can also learn from the Safety Alert sent out that installing something that has the potential to get wedged in the track, as unlikely as it seems, can happen, even after maybe years of safe operation. I encourage everyone who owns, operates, or inspects a Ring of Fire, Super Loop or whatever name your ride goes by, checks that anything mounted inside the track area is securely fastened or located outside the track area.

Another incident that we can all learn from and teach our employees about involved a Gravitron ride. I don’t know the details but know the potential for injury having owned one and moved one for years. Anytime you are performing maintenance or working under a ride that has controls that are not locked out or disabled, you have the potential to be harmed. I don’t know what happened other than an employee tragically was killed while under the ride. I only bring this up because as tragic as it is, we must learn from it to help prevent someone else from getting hurt or killed.

I always preach Lock-Out Tag-Out in Class and to all my associates as we perform inspections. We even have personalized tags with our name and phone numbers on them to help identify who has the ride locked out of service. I know that sometimes you have to have rides or equipment energized or turned to perform some duties in servicing or inspecting, but we must always make sure that we are in a safe position and be aware of the potential hazards.

Training new employees in how to perform these potentially dangerous duties is so important and documenting that training is also important. I know I say it all the time — document everything — but it is true we must remember to properly train employees on how to perform their duties. I’m not saying that is the case in this incident, I’m just saying that we can learn to make sure we are providing training and educate our employees about the potential dangers involved with working on the equipment.

Fatalities are very rare in our industry, but they are a potential that we all must be aware of and when they happen, we should learn from the incident. Education is the key to keeping the Amusement industry one of the safest and most enjoyable activities for our guests and employees.

Remember accidents happen every day in this world, equipment breaks, electronics short out, people do things they shouldn’t, and that’s just in our vehicles we drive. I always say when asked what is the most unsafe ride at the fair is? —“The ride to the fair”. This is so true and I explain that equipment can fail but the likelihood of something failing is so minimal you are safer riding the Merry Go Round than your bicycle or driving your vehicle.

Please continue to make every effort to keep our industry safe and successful at entertaining the masses. I try everyday to make our business more aware of issues and always help anyone I can with industry related questions, so please feel free to reach out and maybe I can help you or you can help me.

I am looking forward to the upcoming State Fairs where The Worldwide Safety Group Team will be performing inspection services and we look forward to helping promote safety through communication with everyone we encounter. I really do love this industry and for the 54 years that I have been on this earth I have to say I learn every day and every day brings new adventures.

I hope that you gained one piece of information from this short article on safety and can help make our industry safer and better every day. I can be reached via email avery@worldwidesafetygroup.com or at 813-505-3938 for any questions or comments, please feel free to provide feedback to help me better communicate these safety related messages. Remember “Our World Revolves Around Safety!”