Six hurt at Disney World's Animal Kingdom

May 29, 2007, 1:13 PM · A reader reports, and now the Orlando Sentinel confirms, that six people were injured on the Kali River Rapids at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World today.

An escape platform collapsed during an evacuation, breaking the leg of a Disney cast member and injuring five guests. Injuries include bruises, back and neck pain.

The ride is closed pending an investigation.

Replies (18)

May 29, 2007 at 2:16 PM · WOW!

Its good nobody was seriously hurt!

May 29, 2007 at 2:36 PM · OMG...thats the last place I'd expect for anyone to get hurt on (unless they slipped on the wet floor). I'm glad no one was seriously injured and hope that the ride will be up and running as soon as safely possible.
May 29, 2007 at 6:10 PM · ha yea that really is the last place I would expect someone to get injured.
May 29, 2007 at 8:47 PM · Whoa! I hope those people are okay! It's good that no one was hurt that bad, otherwise Disney would be in a lot of trouble, and it would just be unfortunate for the people involved.
May 30, 2007 at 12:31 AM · Wow...really hope everyone is ok. Man, first that craziness at MK and now this--the summer vacation season has officially started!
May 30, 2007 at 7:31 AM · Huh? what craziness in MK? did i miss something?
May 30, 2007 at 9:19 AM · The craziness at MK with the teens who were fighting security guards at disney.
And it all starts again. But has it really ended? There has been so much going on in a negative light with disney. From the rhino poop throwing incident at AK, to Tigger, to even the guy who worked for disney (and they made sure everyone knew that he worked for disney) who was busted for loads of child pornography. Then you have all the accidents and deaths from the year before. I am not a fan of disney, and even I feel sorry for them.
May 30, 2007 at 10:03 AM · But the Question is, Why now?

I mean before these past few years, Disney has had a pretty sparkling record in regards to theme park accidents. This one was for sure their fault, but not all accidents are a park's fault.

Still, why now?

May 30, 2007 at 1:19 PM · I am sorry anyone was hurt and do wish everyone a speedy recovery. Regardless of the recent history at any of the Disney parks, they are still the safest ones out there in my opinion.

Its a damn shame that creeps can ruin even the best of places for people. There is enough crap going on in the world without fools causing trouble for families on vacation.

And my 2 cents about the Tigger thing. I have seen the video many times and I side with Tigger!!!!!! He did absolutely nothing wrong and it was a greedy person just trying to make a buck...

There are too many of those in this world too!

May 30, 2007 at 2:38 PM · CRAZY!!!!!! I would never expect anything to happen on that ride
May 30, 2007 at 4:05 PM · "But the Question is, Why now?
I mean before these past few years, Disney has had a pretty sparkling record in regards to theme park accidents. This one was for sure their fault, but not all accidents are a park's fault.

Still, why now?"

The simple answer is cell phones and the internet. What Disney had was a sparkling record in terms of keeping things like this covered up. These types of things have been going on since Disneyland opened. For instance, there were many collisions when the Matterhorn first opened.

This should not be construed as an attack on Disney in any way. Theme parks, like life itself, are not entirely risk free. Just check out either of the "Mouse Tales" books, because, as I said, this type of thing is not new.

May 30, 2007 at 4:19 PM · This is interesting. The story yesterday was that something fell from a bridge striking a raft and injuring guests that way. And that several were severely injured. Damn, I wish I had copied that report! But i truly hope this was the real situation as it sounds much less serious.
May 30, 2007 at 4:26 PM · You know what Marc, you are probably right!
May 30, 2007 at 6:14 PM · I'm back. Funny , I was at Disney again last weekend (Gotta love Cast Member friends)

I didn't go on this ride as I didn't fancy getting wet, but pretty shocking it happened..

Hopefully it'll be a batter year for them!

May 31, 2007 at 1:13 AM · I thought the raft incident was at that park in Texas? I didn't hear much about the Kali incident, but I really hope a lawsuit does not follow.

Iris, Erik is right--4 teens and a 20 year old from New York (my state sadly), which included the 2 oldest who were boyfriend and girlfriend and the boyfriend's siblings all hung around Space Mountain and just cursed and spit at people. Security took them to their offices and they all assualted the guards and one of them got tasered by a guard. It got so bad the sheriff's department had to be called. No clue on where their parents were or whether or not they were really drunk.

BTW did anyone hear about this fight that went on with some teenage boy and Tigger a couple months back, what went on there?

May 31, 2007 at 5:22 AM · The Tigger Incident was just a family trying to make a buck. A kid grabbed tiggers mask and pulled him back, tigger hit the kid on the top of the head because he was being choked, and the family came back and said that the kid was battered. Stupidness.

But that is absolutely right, information is readily available in 2007, and more people than ever are visiting the parks. How many people have died at disney? We only know the rumors, and not the whole facts of those who have died in the past. Why? Because disney was able to pay off the people who were invovled before it went to the press. Again, not an attack Anthony and Javion...just a truth. The truth is that accidents happened before, but because of the speed of information during those times, before the press could get a hold of it, it was taken care of. Now, everyone has cell phones, and cameras, and wireless internet....so as soon as something happens, its all over the place. No hiding it. You cant outrun the cell phone. Disney still downplays a lot of it, as I hear a lot of stories from Castmember friends about what you dont hear. And while I will not go on record to say exactly what I've heard, I can assure you that if all the cast members came out at once and told their tales.....you would most likely not ever go back to wdw. And that is what disney is afraid of. Not to fault disney at all, but when you have an area that big with that many people, you are inviting all the problems of the rest of this world in with it. And they do, for the most part, a good job of keeping things safe.

June 1, 2007 at 6:00 AM · I started Accident Watch on this site (click "Safety Data" on the nav bar above) in part due to my experience as a WDW cast member when a guest was seriously injured on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (due to a CM screw-up by an employee I had been assigned to train but refused to check out 'cause I felt he wasn't safe). The incident happened the night of the "Dick Tracy" movie premiere at Pleasure Island (wow, I'm dating myself there), but, in spite of the presence of dozens of journalists on property that night, not one report of the incident was ever published.

After I started TPI, I wanted to put accident reports on the site, but found that there was no federal database, as there was for airline incidents. So I decided to turn to you, the readers, to do that reporting for us.

It ended up winning the journalism industry's biggest award for websites, the Online Journalism Award, which was then awarded by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the same school which awards the Pulitzers for newspaper stories. It was the first example, actually, of a "citizen journalism" project winning a major journalism award. That drew an immense amount of media attention to TPI, the issue of theme park safety and the concept of reader-driven online news reporting.

And that's where we are today: With thousands of readers reporting news from the parks, and parks doing a better job than ever (IMO) of keeping their parks clean and safe, in response. Yes, there remain failures. But I'm proud of the way that the Internet is empowering consumers to demand better service from theme parks. And, of the industry for responding.

June 3, 2007 at 7:21 PM · I was there the day of the accident, and the day after. The day After the ride was running, and all seemed well. The day of, I never heard anything other than the ride was being repaired and they hope to re-open that afternoon...not sure if they did that day or not. But we did see the helicopters flying over taking photos, so we prety much knew something mor was up than a broken ride...oh and the 3 EMT's and 4 policemen going into the ride.

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