Accident
20-year-old Gemma Savage died on 21 June 2001 following an accident the previous day when two carriages collided on the "Treetop Twister", a spinning Wild Mouse roller coaster, which had opened in May that year. Police decided not to prosecute a maintenance worker, who claimed that he had only received an hour's training on that ride and had not seen its manual. Faulty wiring had also caused a malfunction on the ride. In October 2004 Deputy Coroner John Sleightholme at Skipton Magistrates' Court ruled death by misadventure.
Lightwater Valley's owners and electrician Eric Butters admitted breaching health and safety laws at Leeds Crown Court on 14 November 2006. Lightwater Valley Attractions Ltd was charged with failing to ensure the health and safety of riders, Butters was charged with failing to ensure safety through his work. Both pleaded guilty. A French manufacturer, Reverchon Industries SA, was convicted of two charges of failing to ensure the ride's safe design and construction.
Read more about this topic: Lightwater Valley
Famous quotes containing the word accident:
“When we seek reconciliation with our enemies, it is commonly out of a desire to better our own condition, a being harassed and tired out with a state of war, and a fear of some ill accident which we are willing to prevent.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)