In lieu of the tragic death on the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney World the other day, John of The Disney Blog answers the question of how many people have died at Walt Disney World? From his post:

I’ll be honest. As tragic as it is, 15 deaths since 1989 is very low. He also makes a point that out of the 9 deaths in the past 3 years, 1 of them was while waiting in line. I’ll have to say you can’t Really count that.



As an ex-employee of Six Flags Great Adventure, I just have to say there are a lot of things going on, and the possibility of death is high in any circumstance. Most of the time, the park is not at fault. Someone wants to show off, and do something “cool” and be better than the average park visitor, and instead gets a one way ticket to the afterworld. It’s tragic and sad, but it’s true.

Note also, that I say most of the time. I think there are still many parents today who are enraged at Great Adventure for the 1984 haunted house fire. The teens were just not able to make it to the exits fast enough. Amazingly, the park opened the next day after the fire. Can you believe it? They just built huge walls around the haunted house, while the rest of the park opened for business normally. Please anyone with conflicting information let me know, It’s been about 22 years since that happened!

All in all, I think a lot of accidents in amusement parks don’t happen (this is a good thing folks) because of the employees. A lot of people will tell you that the employees are having too much fun and lollygagging around, but all in all, during the safety checks, they’re not slacking.

In light of everything, I’m just reminded of what I heard one day while visiting Disney World, watching the thousands of children and parents. A tired looking father sits down on a park bench and says to no one in particular, “This is NOT the happiness place on earth.” I just laughed, and we all had a good laugh together. That’s Disney World.