Working at a theme park comes with its fair share of chaos, but nothing prepares you for the lengths some people will go to for a laugh.
What would you do if a customer tampered with the controls of a roller coaster, causing a major disruption?
Would you shrug it off?
Or would you let it get the best of you?
In the following story, a roller coaster operator recounts how one entitled teen’s reckless stunt shut down the ride, and got them ejected from the park.
Here’s what happened.
entitled theme park customer pushes emergency stop on roller coaster
I work at a theme park as a roller coaster operator.
Each coaster has 3 control panels: 2 down on the platform where the customers get on and off the coasters and 1 main control panel in a separate room overlooking the coaster platform.
About a month or so ago, I was working a shift on a coaster’s main control panel.
It didn’t end well for the teen.
When I opened the gates to let the customers into the coaster, a teenager decided to press the emergency stop on 1 of the platform panels while he was getting into the coaster, and the operators on the platform had their backs turned.
We ended up having to close the ride for like 10-15 mins while we restarted it.
My on-shift supervisor, who was in the main control panel room with me, called security, who was luckily close by, and the teen got kicked out of the park.
Man, I was so mad.
Eek. Bet he won’t do that again.
Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit relate to this story.
Yeah, it’s not the place to push random buttons.
This person doesn’t think the person was entitled, just dumb.
Great questions – answers would be nice.
The others with him were probably very upset.
He deserved to get kicked out.
An amusement park is not the place to pull pranks on people, especially where rides are involved.
If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.