Theme Park Workers Share The Most Disturbing Things They've Ever Experienced On The Job

From Redditor /u/puppy2010:

A girl I used to know worked at Wet and Wild Sydney for a season when she was in uni. One night, she was working on the lazy river ride (the kind of one where you sit on an inflatable tube and just bob along) when she noticed some legs coming out of the tube, with the rest of the body trapped in the water under the tube.

She sh*t herself when she saw it and ran over to help the trapped person, only to realize it was a mannequin that had obviously been placed there as a prank.

From Redditor /u/zach2992:

At SeaWorld, she was a camp counselor over a summer. Her kids one week were second and third graders, and she was taking them to... the dolphin area to watch them. Just so happens that at that time there was a dolphin orgy. Just 30 dolphins in one big ball, going at it.

They went up to go feed them and since they were all so busy, only one fat dolphin came up to eat while occasionally you would see some tails come up and splash.

From Redditor /u/MrFinch8604:

I worked at a certain amusement park in Ohio that was considered America's Rollercoaster in 2005. That summer, the transformer/generator of a particularly wicked roller coaster of a cyclonic nature blew, and we had to literally pull people back into the station with a rope tied to the car, and about 20 people. Instead of completely replacing it, they just worked at making it usable for the rest of the summer, and throughout the rest of the year, we would have the ride go into emergency shutdown mode at random times.

We were told just to try turning it off and on again until the code cleared, without any inspections or anything like that.

From Redditor /u/arethafeatherbottom:

My dad worked at Knott's Berry Farm as [the] head of maintenance in Southern California for like 15 years in the '80s and '90s, and I grew up... behind the scenes at the park, and riding the rides before it opened... Fun fact: my mom and dad met at the chicken dinner restaurant. :)

A guy jumped from the parachute ride and [killed himself]. I grew up going on that ride and it was terrifying! It was this tiny little latch at the top of that cage to keep you in. And it was all shaky in the wind.

From Redditor /u/finelineLD:

Some... years ago, I was working my summer vacation at an amusement park, running a rollercoaster. I got to sit and push buttons, give the safety instructions, etc.

So, we get the train full of people, I get the all-clear, hit the button to start the train up the hill, when I see something out of my periphery. A guy has somehow climbed the gigantic wall surrounding the ride, and has dropped down next to the track, where I am about to send a metal train full of people at 40 mph. I slam on the emergency stop button, which shuts down everything on the ride, and grab the phone for security.

My coworkers come up to see what's happening, and I point to the guy down in the ride zone. He's acting weird and erratic, and is actually climbing on the rollercoaster's track, and is taking off his clothes. Security tells us not to approach him, in case he's dangerous, and to move the people in line away. Meanwhile, I head up the stairs to talk to the people who are stuck in the ride. The stairs were open, metal things - extra narrow, steep, and - at this point - damp. In the best of times, I hated climbing them.

I get up and most of the people are calm, except for one woman who is freaking out. She's panicking that the ride is malfunctioning, and that she wants off. Now, I understand panic attacks and how you're completely [a] slave to them. So I'm calmly telling everyone that I was the person who hit the emergency stop, why I did it, etc. From their viewpoint, they literally could see the guy climbing up the track, security chasing after him, etc. I've called for a manager to let this lady off because I'm not able to do it.

So the manager finally arrives, lets this woman off with dire warnings about how dangerous the steps can be. By this point, the police are arriving, there's all sorts of stuff going on in the sights of the patrons as they are trying to arrest this guy.

And then, a guy on the ride announces he wants off, too. So the manager lets him off. He climbs over another guest, faces the train, and calmly announces that this entire thing - the half naked-man, security, the police - all of it was just a cover-up for the fact that the ride had malfunctioned and that they were all going to die.

And I'll be damned if they didn't believe him. We evacuated that ride, and two people slipped walking down those stairs. I had to fill out massive paperwork to keep people from suing, thankfully we were able to call a cop over to witness. After police left, the ride was started back up, with no issues.

From Redditor /u/M1n10nD4v3:

Guy lost his hat on a suspended roller coaster and decided to climb the fence to get it back afterwards. Quite literally had his head kicked off by a lady on the ride as it went by, which also shattered her leg.