Insanely dangerous water park reopens under old management! DAY TRIP!
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
"It's been shut for almost 20 years, and I think no amusement park has caught up to its death toll yet."
Vernon, N.J.'s Action Park was shut down 20 years ago for being ludicrously dangerous, with six recorded deaths and countless concussions, friction burns, near-drownings and lost testicles (no, really — keep reading). It operated under new management (and with most of the really dangerous rides removed or amended) until this summer. But it's just reopened this summer as "Action Park" once more, under the son of the old owner, who seems to want to capitalize on the "holy crap, you could actually die on this" scare factor that the park used to have.
For example, the old park had the Cannonball Loop water slide that went completely upside down (above, though it was only open for a couple years), a 30-foot-tall cliff diving platform, an American Gladiators ripoff and the Alpine Slide, which accounted for nearly half of the place's injuries back in the day. (For more details, check out Action Park's hysterical Wikipedia page or Domain of Death and Weird NJ's detailed looks.)
The legend lives on — in part revived by a short documentary from last year, The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever. Sample quote: "It's been shut for almost 20 years, and I think no amusement park has caught up to its death toll yet." Watch it here:
That toll is six people who actually died, but there's tons with broken bones, friction burns and (according to comments on some of these articles) lost testicles. People died on the Alpine Slide, people died in the wave pool (aka "grave pool"). If you'd like to see some of these rides in action, here's nine minutes of footage from commercials and home video. (An early tagline is "where you and the rides become one," which sounds like an impalement joke waiting to be not funny.) The Cannonball Loop can be seen in action at around 8:17:
But the real craziness is the dozens and dozens of anecdotes posted to every article or video mentioning the '80s-era Action Park; people appear compelled to share their stories of the horrible injuries they suffered or witnessed. We got fascinated by these, and collected a bunch of them here:
Legal Action Park, ahh yes. Never went myself, but knew a guy who lost a testicle there. Really.
My friend Sam lost his left nut going down the Alpine slide- we bust his ball about it still to this day!
I could remember seeing 3 or 4 ambulances at the bottom of the hill, just waiting for an accident to happen. I was amazed how long this place stayed open due to the amount of injuries sustained there. The Alpine slide was where the most injuries happened... people just had no idea how to use the break or judge their speed around a turn and then, BAM! flipped over onto the jagged rocks! hahahah
The other awesome / dangerous ride was the alpine ski slide. It was the giant cement track that you road in a little cart with a hand brake. Screwing up on the ride resulted in a 3rd degree burn up and down your arms.
There was a fast track and a slow track on the alpine slide and my friends and I would try to catch up to whoever was the lead sled on the fast track before we got to the bottom. One time when I was the lead sled, unbeknownst to us they allowed an elderly woman to go on the fast track ahead of me. There was a section of the track where a blind turn was followed by a quick six-eight foot drop and when I came out of the turn there was the old woman trying to pull her sled off the track. I was leaning forward on the sled and her sled hit me right in the face sending me flying backwards off my sled and I slid down the track a bit. Luckily I rolled off the track because my friend was a few seconds behind me and would have run me over, but he still ran into the old lady's and my sleds which were lying on the track. He lucked out better than me with only a few scrapes and bruises. I had several stitches on my face, chin and legs and some bad road rash on my elbows and back not too mention a concussion. It would have been worse if the beer stands weren't so lenient on checking ID and I felt all this without a good buzz on.
I saw with my own eyes someone pull a Nodar Kumaritashvili on the Alpine slide (essentially a concrete luge down the side of what used to be a ski slope), they hit the apex of a banking turn and just kept going up and over, the 60 pound sled crashing back down on the hapless rider who was skidding to a stop on a pile of gravel.
kals:
I was called to serve on a jury that would decide the fate of an individual suing action park because he had been injured on the alpine slide. The judge asked all the prospective jurors in the courtroom if anyone had been on the ride. I recall over one third of the people had been on the ride, myself included. We were immediately dismissed from sitting on the case. To say that we would be biased was an understatement. All of us joked leaving the courtroom that the alpine slide was a disaster and one of the most dangerous rides we had ever experienced. BUT, it sure was fun!
I was on this alpine slide many times in the 80s and 90s. The spitting is absolutely true. This documentary is no exaggeration, this place was insanely dangerous! They don't mention that Action Park also served alcohol and fights were the norm.
My dad flew off a curve on the Alpine Slide, landing on the jagged rocks. He ended up a bloody mess. I nearly drowned in the wave pool. I was bobbing up and down and got tired. I went to the ladder at the side of the pool, but every time I started up the ladder, a wave would come and suck me back down. I really thought I was a gonner. There was another time a guy got to the end of the Alpine Slide when a kid came down behind him. I don't know if he just didn't brake or didn't have brakes, but he rode up onto the other guy's sled and slammed into his back. Yeah, he was taken away in an ambulance. I always managed to get the slide with the stuck brake. I could never make the darned thing move fast enough. Perhaps that was a blessing.
That "Wave Pool" was by far.... Deadly! I've drowned there.. but made it out alive somehow. And i kid you not... there were about 4 life guards watching that Massive simulated beach
I almost drowned at Action Park. I was bobbing up and down not 5 feet from the lifeguard. They finally noticed the commotion and jumped in to save me. Not all was lost as I got to go home with a mean road rash from leaning back too far on the alpine slide.
Friend of mine worked as a lifeguard there for a month one summer in the wave pool, which was deep and got pretty rough. He said busloads of kids from day camps who had no idea how to swim would be dropped off and set loose without supervision, and that he pulled more of them out of the wave pool as they were drowning than he can accurately remember. After a month he'd had enough and quit. I remember how insanely cold the water was on the Tarzan swing, no matter how late in the summer it was. Also what had to be gang war breaking out over line cutting. The employee watching the line took one look at the melee and bolted.
I was in that pool when they had us get out to find some guy a good five minutes later, drowned and unbelievably blue - had to be '85 0r '86. At that time it was basically a free-for-all and there was a short slide near the top, as well as just a ledge to jump off. First dead body for me. We left after that. Drove home in my buddy's Nova listening to the sound of a v8 through glasspack mufflers down the highway, no music.
I went with one of my friends one year. He didn't fair so well. He took a header into the Tidal wave pool and misjudged the wave and instead of hitting the crest of the wave hit missed it and hit his head on the bottom of the pool. They took him out of there and he had a neck brace for the next 6 weeks. And we still wanted to go back the next summer.
Oh, Traction Park. The Cannonball was usually closed when I was there. But one time I went on this ride, I remember almost not clearing the loop and slamming into the bottom part of the apex as I wasn't quite heavy enough to get sufficient momentum (I think the minimum weight was 100lbs?) to go all the way around. that was a good thing though because the puddle it shot you into wasn't very long and people would usually skid off into the grass.
That said, it was still one of the safer rides at Action Park. People would go flying off the Alpine Slide all the time and if you were very lucky, you'd crash into one of the strategically placed hay bales meant to keep you from breaking your head open.
The [Cannonball Loop] slide was also open in 1995; I rode it. We spent the time waiting to ride watching people fall trying to walk back up the grassy hill...as for the ride itself the description above is spot on. I didn't carry the momentum to stick to the slide. I kinda just fell inside of it. It was a pretty painful experience. I mostly remember my friend making fun of the noises I was making that echoed through the tube.
I rode that bad boy four times since it was awesome if you did it right. The problem wasn't the loop itself, it was that they told you "cross legs and arms and don't raise your head up". Of course, you're about to enter a badass loop, so you ignore all of it. Your head is up the ENTIRE time down, so once you hit the loop BOOM the back of your skull slaps the hard plastic loop. You eventually get up and move off the exit, but most of us didn't remember that part.
I saw it in action. Went with my summer camp in 84 and 85, and on one of the later trips it was open. A few of the kids on the trip went on it. As noted in the article, they came out with abrasions, one of the really big kids got them REALLY bad, and they closed the ride for maintenance after he came out. They were all over his back, arms, and legs. There was lots of trash talk about those who wouldn't go on it.
I have 2 older brothers who I saw go down it back in the early/mid 90s. Sadly I was too young/small to go myself. The funny part was when people came out, they couldn't stand up because the tarp was unbelievably slippery (and also they just got their head banged).
I rode the loop. and yes I did get a concussion. Although back then, no one really thought all that much about concussions or the ill effects of them. It was the first ride I went on since it was near the entrance. spent the rest of the day in a haze. had a great time. went to action park many times over the next years (loop was closed after the first time), and every time i went someone in my group was injured. greatest park ever.
I was out of work for 6 months due to this slide! I was so scared I was dropping during the loop and Reyes to spread eagle to hold on. I pulled all the muscles in my chest, shoulders and arm, then dropped into 50 degree water. I thought I was going to have a heart attack! I was saying to myself I won't be able to swim I'm in so much pain! The water was so cold I had to swim out or drown. It was a nightmare!
Grew up just around the corner of Accident Park. Had many a friend who worked there before and after the name change (despite the implication in the article, the place never closed - it was simply bought by Intrawest and renamed to Mountain Creek, same with the attached Great Gorge ski area). This particular ride wasn't open very long (I never remember it in operation), but the rest of the place was pretty much re-used in tact, including the concrete Alpine Slide mentioned by other commenters.
The thing is, rumors of this place always seemed to outstrip the reality of what went down there. I'm sure regulations have beefed up certain safety elements, but most of the time my friends and I would laugh at people doing *insanely* dangerous or stupid things in the context (no brakes on the alpine slide, etc). We always chalked it up to "stupid NY tourists." Biggest hazard there was all those city folk peeing in the wave pool. Ah, the old days in Sussex County.
One of my buddies did have a minorly-horrific accident there, though - there was a cliff dive thing where you'd jump like 25 feet into deep water, and he jumped in a standing position but looking straight down into the water (e.g. being stupid). The impact somehow detached his upper frenulum (thing that connects lip to gums). Lots of blood.
Sadly, the Cannonball Loop was already shut down when I made my lone visit to Action Park as a ten-year-old. I remember that the water park had an attraction that was just a cliff where you jumped into a pool 10-15 feet below. No frills. Here's a cliff. Just fucking jump off of it, kid.
I have memories of this place. They had "cliff diving" as an attraction, in which you could jump into a pool from 15 or 25 feet up (I think, this was a long time ago). Well, I always thought cliff diving looked awesome so I went for it. Expect when I jumped I got scared and balled up. Holy fucking lord was that the wrong thing to do. I never knew water could be so hard. Breaking through really did feel like going through hard concrete. I was fine but I just let the force take me to the bottom of the pool. A life guard got me and and took me out and I was mostly fine expect that my lower back, butt, and the back of my legs and thighs were black and blue all over. GOOD TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As someone who grew up just a few minutes away from Action Park in the late 70s and early 80s I can attest that about half the kids I personally knew who went there came home with injuries. Not always serious ones, but a few were. (I can recall at least one broken leg and a concussion from two different classmates.)
by far the worst or most craziest ride I remember was the first year of surf hill where the lanes progressively got more difficult to where the last 2 lanes you could get extreme air. There was also weight limitation of I believe 200lbs. Well my brother and his wife where with us that day and he was well over 200 lbs and I also gave him a push for good measure he got so much air that he cleared the little pool of water at the bottom and looked like superman flying across the air. He came almost straight down on his shoulder and neck and everyone thought he was dead we all rushed to get to him and it ended his day and he ended up with a bad shoulder for the rest of his life. To this day he does not let me forget it. Last but not least do forget how we used to race each other on the side by side track on the mountain slides or the mechanical bull, sky diving dome, bungee jump or sling shot. It was definitely a crazy place to have fun in the summer and I agree all of you who knows tells stories and most people can believe it could ever have existed. I am now 67 and still alive to talk about it.
I took my dad there and he was visually impaired they didn't care and let him on the motor boats . Someone fell in the water and they were blowing whistles and waving flags to have everyone stop but not dad he couldn't see where the dock was and just kept going they had to grab his boat with a hook yelling at him that he could never go back on the ride. He was like you're right I won't we were screaming laughing. Another time I went with friends same boat ride and I get halfway round the circle and my crotch is on fire they had left a pool of gasoline on the seat. No wonder someone ended up in the water. As far as the alpine slide,I would never go on that. I worked in an ER in NY and we would get alpine slide burn people over there. We knew where they had been when they walked in the door. Ahh good times.
When I was in high school, a freelance journalist friend of mine investigated Action Park. I recall he found that whatever the actual hazards of the park, a big contributing factor to all the litigation against it was its policy of settling everything out of court. There may have been good reason for doing that initially, but once plaintiffs' attorneys were aware of it, the park started getting hit with suits for things like loss of consortium due to psychological distress caused by the wave pool.
Worked there for years as a teenager, everything you hear is true, there was lots of smoking, drinking and partying going on and then our shift would end and we would go out and do more. And if you think things where crazy during park hours you should have seen what happened after the park closed. The annual party on the wave pool deck was legendary, the guys camping trip to the top of the mountain was insane, we lost one guy for three days and i think it was Andy's brother. i can conservatively say that i had personally over 300 saves (worked at the wave pool) we would have to go in and save whole families, not one at a time but take a buoy out with a rope on it and wrapped it around all of them and pull them all to safety. Part of the issue was the close proximity to NYC, you had kids who's exposure to water was a fire hydrant upto that point and now they where surrounded by water. Take the fact that the park was run by kids, supervised with even younger kids (who where usually high, drunk, hungover or a combination of all and you had action park in its heyday, It is actually amazing more people didnt die. And lets not forget the festivals down in motor world. Great memories.
I was an Action Park ride attendant for four years. Not only that but I was one of the first testers to go off their brand new bungee tower when it opened in the early 90s. I can confidently state that if you ever went on that ride, looked into the eyes of the guy buckling your harness and wondered, "is this dude high as hell?" the answer was "yes."
Do you have a story from Action Park? For god's sake, leave it in the comments.
