Indiana Jones Trek Piles Up Complaints

By TRACY WEBER

Jan. 31, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

For a rare peek into one small piece of Disneyland’s safety record, comb through the documents filed in a lawsuit over the Indiana Jones Adventure ride.

Contained within the papers that recount Zipora Jacob’s claim of suffering a brain hemorrhage on the ride are logs of hundreds of other parkgoers who complained of injuries from the attraction. Disneyland usually keeps such information private.

The court records also give an inside look at how Disney continued to modify its high-tech thrill ride for safety and comfort reasons long after it opened to the public in March 1995.

Logs of injuries on the Indiana Jones ride, compiled by Jacob’s attorney in the course of the suit, reveal that hundreds of park visitors have left the ride complaining of injuries ranging from broken teeth to multiple facial contusions as well as a variety of minor mishaps such as split lips and bruises. The logs, which show parkgoers’ complaints of injury for the first two years the ride was open, were put together by Barry Novack, Jacob’s attorney, from Disneyland’s injury records.

“I’m going to live with the pain probably for the rest of my life,” said Robert A. Poll of Santa Monica, who said he entered a confidential settlement with the park after injuring his neck on the ride in 1995. “I never expected to get hurt on the damn thing.”

Disney, for its part, says it warns parkgoers away from its more rambunctious rides. In the case of Indiana Jones, Disneyland specifies that riders must be at least four feet tall and signs warn that the ride is “a fast off-road journey that includes sharp turns and sudden drops. . . . You should be in good health and free of heart, back and neck problems.”

On the Indiana Jones attraction riders sit in 12-passenger “jeeps” that simulate a rugged, off-road ride with sudden drops and turns. The ride, one of the most complex in the park, has 160,000 possible combinations of twists, turns and dips, which are randomly generated by computer.

Disneyland spokesman Ray Gomez said he could not comment on the number of people injured on the ride, but said that Jacob is the only person of the 30 million who have ridden the attraction to claim such an injury.

Gomez said guests should take the warning signs seriously. “You look at all the postings there; if you fall into one of those categories or all of those categories you shouldn’t” ride, he said. “Far and away the vast majority of people who come to the park are not hurt.”

But interviews with people listed in injury logs and letters from those who were hurt show that most of those who reported injuries say they did not fall into any of those categories.

Said Poll: “The big thing I saw is if you’re pregnant, if you have back problems. . . . I didn’t have any of those problems, so I got on.”

Others said the roughness of the ride went beyond the warning.

“I didn’t realize how vicious it was,” said Linda Polon, 55, of Santa Monica. “It was way too rough. It was jerking and pulling from side to side.”

Polon said the pain in her lower back started “right after I got off that ride” in 1995 and that she was out of work for several months afterward, though she never sought redress from Disneyland.

Many of the riders who complained of injuries said they wished they had known that others had been hurt on the ride before they or their children rode it. Nearly all those interviewed said they complained to park officials or Disneyland’s nursing staff about the roughness of the ride. None of them has taken legal action against the park.

After suffering what he called severe bruising on the ride in 1995, Chris Neynaber of San Diego wrote to Disney officials: “I realize the random nature of the attraction allows for varying the ‘potency’ of the experience. However, the attraction, at its most violent, still should not hurt your guests.

“The fun of attractions like the Indiana Jones Adventure,” Neynaber said, “is the appearance of danger without the actual threat of danger.”

In an interview, Neynaber, now 28, said that when Disney’s guest claims office called him, he asked if any other parkgoers had been injured on the ride. He was told he was the first, Neynaber said.

“They said, ‘This is a fluke, something that only happened to you,’ ” Neynaber said. “They were giving no clue actual park guests were being injured. Definitely I would have liked to know ahead of time that other guests had been hurt.”

Parkgoer Kerry Monroe also alerted Disney in a 1995 letter, now part of Jacob’s court proceeding: “I have never had my body been so thrashed in different directions. . . . I feel this ride is dangerous and I wonder how many other people have been hurt on it, whether or not they have written to you.”

In addition to those who complained immediately after riding on the popular attraction, many loyal Disney parkgoers pleaded with Disney officials in letters or in phone calls, which are now part of the court record, to tame the ride. One woman even provided them with a list of possible modifications.

“I just hated the thought of Disneyland doing that to me,” wrote another parkgoer, Carolyn Peacock of Claremont, who believes she was injured on the ride in June 1995. Peacock wrote that after numerous urgent-care visits, X-rays, prescriptions and shots, she was finally diagnosed with a pinched nerve that caused pain in her arm and muscle spasms in her chest.

“I do hope I am the rare case because not everyone is as forgiving as I am and would use this opportunity to sue,” wrote Peacock, who has since passed away. “But if I did that I would feel I couldn’t come back anymore, and I can’t let that happen.”

In recent years, Disneyland, like many other parks nationwide, has worked to develop more complex, high-thrill amusement attractions and has recently begun a ride-by-ride review of its operations. While the rides are generally viewed as safe, as the thrills have increased, injuries at parks across the country also have gone up.

In Jacob’s lawsuit, depositions with Disney ride designers and park officials show how the attraction was tested first on employees, including the park’s guest claims manager, Betty Appleton, and toned down twice before opening to the public. In her deposition, Appleton admitted that she worries that her herniated discs were due to the roughness of the ride.

Even after the ride opened, designers continued to modify the ride in reaction to parkgoer injuries and complaints, court documents show. Designers kept in touch with guest claims to see “if there’s any trend in injuries that be occurring that we can fix,” documents show. In the months after the ride opened, additional padding was added to the grab bars of the vehicle, the seats were contoured more and foot rests were added to “reduce rider movement.”

Disneyland spokesman Gomez said most attractions at the park are “designed with the safety element in mind and they’re tested,” but that safety and comfort changes are “constantly, constantly” being made.

“If it comes up that an attraction needs a modification, then we’ll make it,” he said.

The documents also show that because of the ride’s many combinations of twists and dips, designers have difficulty discovering which part of the ride might injure guests. The combination that allegedly injured Jacob, said her attorney Novack, would only have been repeated 15 times in the last five years. After Jacob was injured, Novack contends, the park removed one ride profile, which Disney designers said provided the roughest ride. A Disney designer said the combination was pulled “in order to decrease the number of claims from guests.”

Novack said he is trying to get more recent records on injuries.

Neynaber said injury data on park rides should be available to any park visitor who wants them.

“If not at the attraction, at Disneyland City Hall. They should have injury reports you could request if you’re interested,” Neynaber said. Parkgoers then could make up their own minds as to the risk, he said.

Gomez said that if enough Disneyland visitors expressed an interest in reviewing such information, “it’s something we’d need to look at” providing.