However, the Cobblestone Village station remains in place, as does the right-of-way through the village's miniature golf course.[46]. It quickly earned the infamous nickname Accident Park., Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), The Deadliest Roller Coaster Accident in America, https://www.history.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-action-park-new-jerseys-most-dangerous-water-park, The Rise and Fall of Action Park, New Jerseys Most Dangerous Water Park. In 1976, Eugene Mulvihill and his company, Great American Recreation (GAR), the owners of the recently combined Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area in Vernon Township, New Jersey, wanted to make money during the summer off-season. But for a generation of kids from the Tri-State area, nothing will replace the dangerous thrills of a hot summer day at Action Park. Surf Hill, common to other water parks at the time, allowed patrons to slide down a water-slick sloped surface on mats into small puddles until they reached a foam barrier after an upslope at the end. By 1980, Motorworld had been carved out of swamplands the ski area owned across State Route 94. These practices took place in a range of its operations, including customer safety. [16], A few rides were closed and dismantled due to costly settlements and rising insurance premiums in the 1990s,[b] and the park's attendance began to suffer as a recession early in that decade reduced the number of visitors. The attraction closed with the park in 1996. Guests would grab a 20-foot cable, and then swing over a spring-fed pool of water (which at one point wasn't water at all, but rather a cushioned area) and jump in, theoretically, when the rope reached its height. ", As you can see in footage in the movie, the Alpine Slide a 2,700 foot long slide that riders rode a ski lift to get to the top and the tracks were below them. For the current park operating on the site, see, Group of friends, Action Park, August 3, 1994, Factors contributing to the park's safety record. Action Park is now a much smaller attraction and has a much harder time competing with other parks while it used to have a monopoly. Some employees who texted the ride told Weird NJ that if you went in feet first, you'd come out head first, and vice versa. I consider it a true shame that future generations will never know the terror of proving their grit at New Jersey's most dangerous amusement park.[39]. Tall riders also often were unable to fit their legs into the small-sized boats, resulting in them hanging off of the sides of the boats and being fractured during collisions. Action Park was officially opened on July 4, 1978. Riders sat sideways in cars built for two people. Now it is the subject of a documentary. New hires often had to play the drowning victim, and after the training was over, or instead of training, were often abandoned in the water to get out themselves. Kamikaze was a fairly tame waterslide by Action Park standards, blue in color with drops and rises periodically. May 26, 1978: The resort area expands: Action Park opens at the base of the mountain. Kentucky Action Park is located at 3057 Mammoth Cave Road Cave City, KY 42127. Some caused injuries, some caused fatalities, and some are still open today. [14][15], In September 1991, GAR petitioned the township committee to put a referendum on the November ballot that if passed would have legalized the operation of games of skill and chance at Action Park. Action Park's Motorworld section consisted of rides based around powered vehicles and boats on the west side of Route 94, opposite the main part of the park. The park is no longer the lawless playground it once was, and the Alpine Slide is long gone (thank god), but Action Park has retained much of the original spirit that made it great. (It is acknowledged. "[67], GAR, as its legal troubles would suggest, was accused of cutting corners to maximize its profits. It was also unique in that department in that all other amusement parks were fined for first offensesexcept Action Park. [25] As November approached, GAR negotiated a deal with Noramco Capital Corp. and the Praedium Fund of CS First Boston, in which they would purchase the debt owed to First Fidelity, temporarily fending off an impending foreclosure. They also say that these boats were riddled with snakes. Save. [10]:16:25[42], In 1991, Action Park opened up a 70-foot-tall (21m), two-station bungee jumping tower near the alpine slide. The original version of the park's notoriety for its unsafe reputation inspired a film by Jackass creator and star Johnny Knoxville; filming started in March 2017 and wrapped in June 2017. It continued through the parking lot, across Route 94, and came to rest in a swamp. The documentary features employees discussing how truly unsafe this was, saying that they called it "The Death Zone" when people got to shoulder-length water, also noting that families and large groups of people would stick together, potentially bringing one another down under the unruly waves. Action Park was still advertised as the world's largest water park. The ball shot all the way through Action Park's parking lot, ramped a small hill, and flew by a stunned construction crew, then bounced right across the Interstate, bringing traffic screeching to a halt. Opened in Vernon, New Jersey, in 1978, Action Park was one of the first modern water parks in the United States. [81], In 2010, the whole Mountain Creek ski area and water park complex was sold[82] to a group led by Eugene Mulvihill, the former owner of Great American Recreation and the owner of the adjacent Crystal Springs Resort; however, he died two years later. Alpine Center was the home of the ski lift and the Alpine Slide, which is just the most obviously dangerous ride you can ever imagine in your life. On one occasion, a guest who felt the gladiator he contended against had been too rough, striking him frequently on the head with the padded end of his pugil stick, returned to the attraction with some of his friends in an effort to exact retribution. [42], The park also sold beer in many kiosks on the grounds, with similarly relaxed enforcement of the drinking age as with other restrictions in the park. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park. You control the speed in this action-packed thrill ride with dips, high-bank turns, and spectacular views. A state official lamented that many water-slide accidents were due to guests who, in blatant violation of an explicitly posted rule, often discarded their mats midway down the slide and waited at a turn for their friends so they could go down together. In its later years, personal injury lawsuits led to the closure of increasing numbers of rides and eventually the entire park closed in 1996. "[28] After closing at the end of the season as usual on Labor Day 1996, it launched a website where visitors could find information about rides, directions to the park, lodging, and enter a lottery for park tickets. (Photo Credit: Joe Shlabotnik / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0) The park regularly held quirky events like a Dolly Parton lookalike contest. [79], Action Park is the subject of Mashable's documentary video, The Most Dangerous Theme Park in America (September 24, 2019). The final stretch of the river consisted of a large downhill portion complete with bumps, and a 1-foot-high (30cm) jump where the rafts would momentarily catch air and then slam back onto the surface. The cart would then land into a pool of water that was very shallow, with the intent purpose of skipping along the water like stones thrown in a pond. Lifeguards would supposedly make as many as 30 rescues during any given busy weekend, a stark contrast to the 1-2 that are typically found in a typical entire pool or lake season. Motorworld was located across the street from the other two sectionswith a major highway, Route 94, in betweenand was the home of vehicle-based activities like go-karts and even freaking speedboats. The wave pool had a capacity to hold between 500-1,000 people, many of whom acted recklessly in that they didn't even realize that they didn't know how to swim until the water was way over their heads. He envisioned a theme park with slightly more thrills, one where the riders "controlled" the action. [26], In February 1996, the creditors who had taken on GAR's $14 million debt petitioned to force it into bankruptcy. "They seemed to build rides," one attendee recalled, "not knowing how they would work, and [then let] people on them. [45], Much of the Transmobile was dismantled when Intrawest took over the park in 1998. The host, Riki Rachtman, interviewed and went on the rides with the band Alice in Chains. Two diving cliffs, one 23-feet and another 18-feet, were set above a 16-foot-deep swimming grotto. Because after the first person dies in a wavepool, close the fucking wave pool!". [citation needed] Height- and weight-based restrictions were often ignored. Riders were weighed, hosed down with cold water, instructed to remove jewelry, and then carefully instructed in how they had to position their bodies to complete the ride.[51]. This one had riders on some sort of mat basicaly ride parallel tracks to the bottom, frequently colliding with each other. It asked if some sort of special relationship existed between GAR and the state. This content is imported from twitter. The park re-opened as Action Park in 2014-15, and this plan for a loop-de-loop slide was made public. Also, people who couldn't swim would frequently make the jump, not necessarily realizing how deep the grotto was, and need lifeguards to save them. Alpine Center was the home of the ski lift and the. The Rides at Action Park (as Seen in Class Action Park) Could Literally Kill You, 'Only Murders in the Building' Will Get a Season 3, very lazy and very drunk guests often spent time, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Since then she has written for a number of print and online publications, as well as published a children's book. Barnum and Walt Disney. Versions of this slide, and the same splash pool at the bottom, still exist at Mountain Creek today. In 2012, Mountain Creek introduced an alpine coaster, which combines elements of an alpine slide and a roller coaster. Updated: September 8, 2020 | Original: August 29, 2017. [40][41] Had state inspectors looked at the site, employees said years later, they would have seen that rocks there, which they had told the park to remove on an earlier visit, remained. As described in Class Action Park, many of the test subjects came out of the slide in the (far too short/shallow) exit pool with mouths full of blood and missing teeth; the slide wasn't sufficiently padded. [2] A reporter for Vernon's local weekly said in Class Action Park that, as Sussex County's largest employer,[10]:1:15:10 Action Park received special treatment from the township government. I suspect that many of us may have come closest to death on some of those rides up in Vernon Valley. Today, it is known as the H-2-Oh-No. Former park employee Tom Fergus was quoted in the magazine Weird NJ as saying that the "skate park was responsible for so many injuries we covered it up with dirt and pretended it never existed". The chutes were torn out afterward, but the route can still be seen from the gondola that replaced the chairlift. Across the other side of Route 94 was Motorworld, where vehicle-based rides (of the water, land, and air variety) were housed. The park opened in 1978 as the brainchild of Eugene Mulvihill, a man considered equal parts P.T. [23] As 1995 progressed, GAR's financial woes continued to accumulate. GAR's management resorted to illegal financial schemes to keep itself solvent, which led to indictments of its executives, some of whom, like founder Gene Mulvihill, pled guilty to some charges. The gladiator called in support of his own, and eventually a brawl involving several dozen people broke out. The waves also reached up to 40 inches in height, and it wasn't entirely clear that the water in the pool was getting deeper when it indeed was. New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, date not given, Proposed Preliminary and Final Site Plan for BLACK CREEK SANCTUARY at MOUNTAIN CREEK - Drawing 4, "Demolition Plan." In 2000 one litigant alleged in court filings that 2,400 injury claims had been filed against GAR. One person even remembers hearing that a patron got stuck at the top of the loop, causing the park to build a hatch to aid in future rescues. Action Park was an amusement and water park located in Vernon Township, New Jersey, United States, on the grounds of the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski resort. In 2010, Mulvihill led a committee to buy the park back. However, soon after the park's opening, it became . When a guest who fell out of his kayak tried to get back in, he accidentally touched the wiring of the fans and it sent him into cardiac arrest, killing him. Not only was the park home to poorly-designed rides, rowdy clientele, and a whole lot of booze, but it was just objectively unsafeand that led to numerous injuries and even deaths to patrons who dared to ride the rides. [13] IBC later backed out of the deal, feeling the site was not suitable for their needs upon further inspections of the properties. What are the best little known attractions in Kentucky? Founder and CEO Gene Mulvihills philosophy was that amusement park visitors should be in control of their experience, envisioning a park where patrons managed the ridesincluding how fast and how high they went. Get the lowdown on the rise and fall of this Jersey legend. [35] Instead, Canadian resort developer Intrawest purchased the property in February 1998. Buh. The Alpine Slide was the most notorious attraction at Action Park, causing injuries daily.
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