Prosthesis & Amusement Parks

The following question was posted on the O&P listserve in reference to wearing a prosthesis on a roller coaster. A list of answers and comments it generated are also included:

Dear Colleagues:

I have had two patients who wear a lower extremity prosthesis come to me in the past three weeks asking me to provide a statement (affidavit?) guaranteeing that their prosthesis will not fall off while they are riding various rides at a high profile amusement park. In thirty-one years, I have never had a request like this. I was most recently provided a list (from the park) of all the rides, followed by this statement:

"Rides (X) and (Y): Manufacturer requires that guests with prosthetic devices must provide documentation from the manufacturer of their prosthetic device guaranteeing that the prosthetic device has been designed to remain in place on a high speed roller coaster ride exceeding a maximum speed of 120 MPH...with maximum G forces from -1.5 Gs to 5 Gs with a sufficient safety factor for single point failure items."

Has anyone dealt with this yet? Have any of you provided a prosthesis specifically "designed to remain in place on a roller coaster ride?" Would an insurance company consider that "medically necessary, or a convenience item?

What is a "single point failure item??"

Although I can appreciate the importance of amusement parks addressing and minimizing their high liability, what with children getting their feet and heads chopped off recently on the rides, I, for one, am not comfortable going out on a limb and guaranteeing that ANY prosthetic suspension system is absolutely fail-safe, (at 5 Gs no less!). You cannot imagine how badly I felt when I had to decline the requests of these young men, but, Hey......what could I do?

So, esteemed list-serve members, if you have any suggestions, I am all ears.

Summer's not over yet!

Thank you,

Barry Steineman, CPO/L

Toledo, Ohio

I was asked to post responses on my query: Has anyone been asked to guarantee prosthetic suspension at 120 mph and 5 Gs on an amusement park ride?

Many thanks to all who replied.

Barry, tell the two lower limb patients to wear long pants and avoid the whole embarrassing situation. That's what I do and it works fine.

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WOW!!! this is a first...will you post your responses?

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Sounds like discrimination or BS to me. Do they require a statement from the earring, pants, and shoe manufacturers, especially the cowboy boot guys? Seriously. Do they? If not, why not?

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Barry, I have written a few letters for patients who attend Cedar Point. The purpose of the letter is to assure the it is very unlikely a prosthesis would come off during a ride based on the suspension systems being used. I also advise the patient to use extra suspension when participating in such activities. (TES Belts and such.)

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I am a BK amputee, and have gone to King's Island near Cincinnati many times in my life, but won't be going back there anytime soon. There are signs on some rides stating that you cannot ride with flip-flops, sandals, braces, casts, prosthetic limbs, etc. So, my approach to this is to just take my leg off (a simple task of just slipping the leg off, and leaving the liner on my

leg) and leave the leg with everyone's sandals while I ride the ride. When the ride is over, I just have to step into the leg and I'm on my way to the next one (like Face Off where your feet are dangling during the ride). The wonderful employee there would not let me ride the coaster because I "had a prosthetic leg", but I educated her on the fact that I wasn't wearing a prosthetic leg, just like everyone else that "had" flip-flops and left them sitting there with my leg during the ride. She didn't seem to get it (and probably didn't get much of anything, not the sharpest person I have ever talked to).

Anyway, the manager had to come to her rescue (at my demand and refusing to get off the ride), and he agreed that if I was not wearing the leg on the ride,

then it doesn't matter whether I had a prosthetic leg or not. I rode the

ride, but can't say that I enjoyed it much after that commotion and frustration.

That happened over and over at that park, it sucked and I won't be going back.

At Universal Studios in Orlando, there are a few rides where your feet also dangle, and they were very cooperative with me and even offered to take my leg for me, allowing me to sit on the ride, and then they would take it over to the side and put it with the shoes and other items that were being left behind. I would make a joke of it, telling them to not "let it run off" on me while I was on the ride, and everyone around could hear that, and everyone was dying laughing. It just so happens that the Dueling Dragons is one of my favorite coasters there, and that is the ride where a few years ago, a BK amputee claims to have lost his leg while on that ride. He claims that it fell off and went sailing in to some lake or water area. The employees searched for hours all around that ride, in all the ponds and water, and never found the leg. Of course he sued the park and forced them to buy him a new leg. I followed that story closely and also talked to the people at the park shortly after this incident was in the news, and they said that they have some video of this guy coming into the park with no leg, and also the employees seemed to remember him getting on the ride using crutches, but they could not 100% recall that for sure. Anyway, the park paid something huge to him to get a new leg, and also for the pain and suffering caused to him for having to go the rest of the day and the coming weeks with no leg. There are a lot of other damning issues for this amputee, like they could not provide other records that even show the last time he had gotten a leg that were not more than like 10 years old. It seems to me that this guy pulled this stunt just to get someone with deep pockets to just pay the money and keep it out of the news as much as possible. It is the fault of people like this that end up screwing up the entire system for everyone else.

At Disney world, they are more than accommodating for people with

"disabilities", even though I don't consider myself disabled.

I have never had anyone ask me (as a CP) to provide anything like this, and if I was asked, I could not do it. There is NO way to guarantee that a leg won't fly off when riding some of these rides. There are just some things in life that are not "fair" or accessible to everyone. And I hope that they never are forced to build some theme parks with rides that "EVERYONE" could ride on. There is no such ride out there. Not even a simple train ride will meet everyone's demands or special needs, and I am sure that someone would come up with some crazy reason why they are being discriminated against because they can't ride something like that.

Anyway, most parks I have been to (which are many) have been great to me, but King's Island takes the cake for being the worst park ever when it comes to employees and their understanding of their rules and the special needs of the guests. There was no reason for me to have all the problems that I had, like Face Off, the Drop Zone, and 2 others, where I literally took my leg off and was still told that I could not ride it because I have a prosthetic

leg....but I was not wearing the leg, and they couldn't get it. I am not saying

anything racial here, but all these employees seemed to be from the ghettos of Cincinnati that I was dealing with. I have never experienced this any other place in my life, but that's not so say that it doesn't happen other places either.

Tell the patient to either take the leg off, if at all possible, and then ride the rides. That works for me, and I don't mind that at all. Even at Epcot (Disney world Florida) the ride "Soarin" is a ride where my feet are dangling, but not moving fast or pulling G's, but I still take it off so that I don't have to worry about it falling off during the ride and hitting someone below me, or freaking people out.

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Like everything else, they just want to transfer liability. If you made the prosthesis, it really does not matter, if it came off, you would be included in the law suit.

What is the USA coming to?

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You were wise not to sign that! Maybe those people should have just worn slacks so as to avoid any questions by the ride operators???

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A further question to your line of inquiry might be "how does one go about testing that their suspension is adequate under those circumstances?" I suspect that there might be ethical issues involved in sticking your clients into centrifuges etc. in order to test their interface. One might pose that question to the park requiring the documentation. Still, gives a new twist on "keep arms and legs inside the car at all times," no?

Very best of luck to you and your thrill-seeking clients.

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I had such a request last year. I typed a quick memo and faxed it to the park so that my client could enjoy the day at the park with his family. You are liable 100%, 100% of the time anyway

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I agree with you on not guaranteeing the suspension. What about

removing the prosthesis if it is TT? I'm sure there are people in

wheelchairs that ride the rides. I assume a park attendant would

make sure the chair would be at the ride exit. But that is just a guess.

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Thanks again to all who replied, and to Paul P. for this great forum.

Barry Steineman, CPO/L