A dragon-themed kiddie roller coaster called the Orient Express screeched to a halt in the closing hours of the Tanana Valley State Fair in Fairbanks this month, and a medical report backing a woman's assertion that she suffered whiplash injuries has prompted a state investigation.
The woman, Amber Swain, a mother from North Pole, says she and her three children suffered neck and back injuries when the ride suddenly stopped. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development is opening a rare amusement park ride accident investigation to determine what happened.
The owner of the company that operated the fair rides, A-1 Midway USA, said the mishap didn't generate any immediate injury reports and didn't toss riders out of cars or hurt people on the ground. But he acknowledged that a mechanical failure led to the sudden stop.
A different company, Chugiak-based Golden Wheel Amusements of Alaska, operates the 42 rides at the Alaska State Fair that opened Thursday. Golden Wheel expects rides like the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Mega Drop Tower and the Rave to draw upward of 350,000 patrons.
Inspectors were out in force this week in Palmer for the rides at the Alaska State Fair — five were from a national inspection service, and two were from the state. Problems they flagged were resolved later by Golden Wheel before the public climbed on board.
The Fairbanks investigation marks one of the few times state authorities get directly involved in Alaska's amusement industry. It's only the state's second amusement accident investigation since 2007.
[State investigating slingshot ride malfunction that injured man]
Midway rides occasionally break down and the state doesn't usually hear about it. It's only when someone dies on a ride or suffers injuries needing medical care that the state investigates.
The Department of Labor opened the accident investigation Thursday after Swain, 27, provided a medical report from an emergency room visit at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
A hospital provider wrote that Swain's "whiplash type of injury" was expected to heal without intervention apart from pain management, according to a report Swain provided Alaska Dispatch News.
"There was a diagnosed injury as a result of an amusement ride incident," said Will Harlan, mechanical inspection director for the state's Labor Standards and Safety Division.
The ride was about 90 minutes from closing for the year when Swain and her three children boarded the Orient Express on Aug. 13.
Swain and her 3-year-old climbed in three cars behind the front car. Her 5- and 7-year-olds were in the first car. Her boyfriend stayed on the ground with her 1-year-old.
The first loop around the tracks was "rough" enough near the back of the track that Swain's hair popped out of the bun that held it, she said.
As the ride reached the same area on a second loop, the front car hit the track hard enough that the car where Swain's children rode partly derailed and everybody suddenly jolted forward, she said.
Swain said A-1 owner Mike Mills helped get riders out of the cars but didn't respond to her later when she returned to tell him she and her children were hurt.
Swain received a diagnosis of acute neck and back sprain from the emergency department at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, according to the report. X-rays didn't show any broken bones. Her children were diagnosed with lesser strains rather than sprains, she said.
"It didn't just stop, it crashed. And people did get hurt," Swain said. "I may not have any broken bones, but I know a strained neck and a strained back hasn't been very easy for a mother of four."
Mills said he didn't see anybody get hurt that day.
"I unloaded every kid myself. Nobody was injured," he said "Nobody went to the medics, nobody went to anything."
He thought it was strange that none of the nine other people on the ride complained of any injuries.
Mills said the accident occurred when a guide wheel on the side of the dragon slid from its slot. He said he inspects every ride many times a day, and didn't know what went wrong mechanically.
"It slid over for some reason, it caught on the track and stopped the train," he said.
All the company's safety precautions remained in place, Mills said: Everybody stayed restrained in their seats until he used a manual release to help get them out. The ride came to a stop about 4 1/2 feet from the ground.
He disputed Swain's account about her returning to talk to him about injuries later, saying the "kids were jumping around" and Swain took pictures that she threatened to put up on Facebook.
"She never said nothing about getting hurt," he said. "She said, 'Oh, this is going to blow up on Facebook tomorrow.' "
Swain posted critical comments about the incident on the social media site early the next morning.
The only other reportable accident logged by the Department of Labor since 2007 was one that happened in May 2014 in Anchorage. A slingshot-style ride called the Ejection Seat malfunctioned and sent a man to the hospital with serious facial injuries.
Under state policy, the ride was shut down, investigated, inspected and only then re-opened by the state for public use.
Otherwise, an operator who suffers a mechanical breakdown that doesn't fall under the statutory definitions of an accident can keep running the ride without penalty after it's repaired.
The state says amusement rides around Alaska must be inspected once a year after an initial check 30 days before they start up for the first time. Eleven ride operators are registered with the state.
The Orient Express was inspected Aug. 2, according to state records.
But there's no requirement that a state employee conduct the inspection, officials say. Rather, a nationally certified private inspector does it because the state lacks a nationally certified amusement ride inspector qualified to do the job, Harlan said.
There's also no requirement that a state inspector observes the private inspection, although Harlan said one is involved as often as possible. The state inspector now is Casey Crowder, a new state elevator and escalator inspector who travels to fairs and other amusement venues to verify the private inspection and affix a state sticker.
The day before the state fair started in Palmer, Harlan and Crowder shadowed five inspectors certified by the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials who fanned out across the midway.
"Technically, we are in the inspection business but we're not because we do not have a certified ride inspector," Harlan said Wednesday during a pre-fair tour. "We do need to know what right looks like and that's where Casey comes in."
Politically, it's in the best interest of Alaska's amusement companies to work closely with the state, said Chase Eckert, Golden Wheel's safety manager.
"The fear is something will happen somewhere, as it may have happened in Fairbanks. As it happened with the ejector seat," Eckert said. "We'll have reactionary legislation."