Tales of an Amusement Park Ride Operator: Vol I - Dante’s Inferno

Miracle Strip Amusement Park had 3 indoor rides, which where insanely popular, and always had really long rides… there was the Dungeon, which was a Tilt-A-Whirl in this dome, with fake spider webs and junk, smoke machines, light show… it was my least favorite of the indoor rides, I was just never a huge fan of the Tilt-a-Whirl in general, I got more of a kick of trying to keep from not spinning, and keeping it balanced as much of the ride as I could.

Then there was the Abominable Snowman, which was probably my favorite to ride, There was a giant snow monster at the entrance, but of all the indoor rides it was the coldest air conditioning, and in the hot Panama City summers, that was a big perk of the ride.  The ride itself was an old Scrambler, which was always one of my favorite rides too… there were laser lights, and strobes, and my friend Pete ran it a lot… he was a big Bob Marley fan, and he always had the Bob Marley box set with him when he ran the ride…. so whenever I went in, I got him to play my favorite Marley tunes during the ride.. which was really nice during the era of “Whoomp There it Is” and “Daisy Dukes”… Man, I was so over the music of those days… it was nice to hear “Jammin’” or “No Woman No Cry”, or “Iron Lion Zion” instead.

But Dante’s Inferno, that was the ride I operated.  And let me tell you, this ride set up was PURE GENIUS.  First off, this was the entrance of the ride…

That’s a good way to get ya set up for a thrill ride, if you ask me!

What?  You didn’t ask me?  Ahhh go fuck yourself then!

Anyway, you get inside this thing, and it’s a Chance Trembant, which is the perfect ride for this situ… what?  You don’t know what a Chance Trembant is?

Watch this!

So anyway it was the perfect ride for this situation… it was a mind trick, you spin around, and go up and down, but the timing of it is where you almost just feel like you’re rising and falling… then they had these super powerful red strobe lights, so now you’re rising and falling in the pitch black with flashing red lights, and laser lights circling all about with loud music and smoke machines… it was really a cool set up for the inside of Satan himself!

Then half way through the ride, it would lower, stop, and go backwards.  Now the ride was driven by a spinning tire, so when it stopped, we would turn the lights all the way off, then right when we hit the brakes fire up those strobes as the tires screeching to stop the ride would start… it was awesome. 

Now the downside to operating this ride is maybe 3 or 4 times a day, people would throw up on it.  Now it’s not a total downside, because it gave us time to goof off while we were cleaning up.  I’ve always hated puke, though, so the first time I had someone puke, I was working with a girl who was a multi-season vet of the amusement park business, and she MADE ME clean the puke up by my self the first time… and it totally broke me of my hatred of puke. 

The best puke story was this one time the ride was going, and there were three operators… one controlling the ride, one doing the music and lights, and one just helping out with loading and unloading.  This particular time, I was the unloading guy.  The booth we worked in had a big plexiglass window and an open doorway to where the ride was.  I would stand in the doorway listening for trouble, and watching for any sort of mechanical issues (that’s code for enjoying the cool breeze coming off the ride).

This time as I was standing in the doorway I hear someone yelling “Stop the ride, pleeeeassssse, stop the ride, she’s getting sick”… so I leave the doorway and walk over to the operator and as I’m saying “Someone said stop the ride, they’re getting si…” a HUGE splash of puke hit the plexiglass window… looked like someone threw a pot of chili at us.  I looked over at the doorway I was just in now had a puddle of stomach stew all over the floor.  One of the few times I’ve had a stroke of luck in my life.

So I grab the “Ride Temporarily closed for maintenance” sign to put on the entrance as we clean up the puke, I go and grab the door knob to open the entrance door and it’s coated in barf… it felt like I grabbed a door knob coated in warm sauce and had a couple sauteed onions on it.  It was terrible, and apparently it showed on my face when I opened the door and slapped the sign up because everyone in line was like “awwww man someone puked”.

Once we started cleaning up, it was everywhere…. the lady must have just taken part in a chili and manwich eating competition… it was all over the window, the walls, it was on the shelf area where the smoke machines were, the roof of our booth… there was so much that people complained about the ride being down and managers came in thinking we were goofing off… we ended up with like 7 people cleaning up puke, from one person.  It was amazing.

Another highlight was when a younger guy, maybe early 20s, was getting off the ride, I came around and unlatched the bar, and he looked fine, stood up and thanked me, then as I moved on to the next cars I hear this loud bang… and look back and he was laying on the metal floor face down… I thought he was fucking around.  Turns out he had some sort of heart attack on the ride… he lived, but what the fuck, he had some nerve trying to die on my shift.

One time, I was counting how many empty cars were left, and had apparently rested my hand on the metal clip for latching the bar down on… It was like a spring loaded clamp, to close the bar, all you did was slam it down… to open it, you pushed the clamp back, and lifted the bar… simple mechanism.  So there I was standing looking for empty seats and the guy slams the bar shut on my hand, and my finger was stuck in this spring loaded trap… I yelped and looked at him and said “What did you do that for?!” and I struggled to open the bar to get my hand out… I did get like an hour off in the medic room getting splints and stuff, so it was okay in the end.

It was a really fun ride to work on, and it was probably the most popular ride in the park, it added to that whole rock star thing.  I remember one time the ride started and the tape player jammed, so I got on the announcement mic and did my best version of Public Enemy’s “Cold Lampin’ With Flavor”… if you don’t know it, youtube it… I was the man.  That was a hell of a way to waste my 15 minutes of fame.

That ride had so many good memories for me, that I’m shocked I didn’t decide to worship Satan.  Maybe I will, who knows?