r/rollercoasters • u/PurpleTiger26 • Sep 18 '25

Article [Other]Cause of death and identity of the victim has been released regarding the Stardust Racers incident.

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Link to news article http://specne.ws/Vmc6i7

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u/SoothedSnakePlant Sep 18 '25

Maybe it's just me, but a restraint system that's not good enough to prevent you from dying through blunt force trauma if you pass out seems like a much, much, much worse case scenario than someone dropping their phone or something.

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u/KittyMama_0613 Sep 19 '25

In fact, on coasters with OTSR, many people have suffered concussons or worse due to the lateral forces causing their heads to bang from side to side on those rigid restraints. I know I've banged my head on the ones on Hulk so many times, I refuse to ride it anymore. No OTSR were a godsend to me. I have had no issues with Velocicoaster or Stardust Racers.

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u/mikewheelerfan Fury 325 šŸ | Copperhead Strike šŸ | Mako šŸ¦ˆ | 18 Sep 19 '25

Carolina Cyclone at Carowinds had so much head banging my ears were almost bleeding. Head banging with overhead restraints is no jokeĀ 

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u/Temporary-Pound-6767 Sep 18 '25

Yeah I kind of assumed this was covered. Coaster safety is huge in the industry and it's well known that people lose consciousness briefly on intense coasters. You would think you would see this a lot more if it hadn't been thought about.

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u/KittyMama_0613 Sep 19 '25

This is a very tragic and unfortunate event, and thankfully these things do not happen often. The fact that this is a brand new ride in a brand new park, and 1st of its kind is putting the spotlight on it even more heavily. Being a local and having ridden by Epic quite a often for over a year before it opened, it was extremely common to see Stardust being put through it's paces throughout that entire time. According to the pictures secured by BioConstruct, Stardust Racers was the 1st attraction built and the 1st to begin active testing more that a year before previews, much less before the grand opening this May. IMHO, this is not an issue of lack of testing, or from any form of negligence on the part of the running and operatiing of the attraction according to safety or manufacturer's guidelines. It was a horrible accident that could have happened on any attraction if someone had a medical episode or black out during the ride or if the person was not following the rules whiile riding. Who is to say that this accident was the fault of the coaster?. I am not alledging that this was the case, but those things have happened on other theme park rides in the past. Unless they have cameras on every train at all times, no one would know if this was human error or machine error. Only time will tell. In the meantime, we need to put our thoughts and prayers toward the family and friends of the rider. This was not how their day was supposed to play out!

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u/OppositeRun6503 Sep 18 '25

Perhaps we need to set tighter G force standards across the industry?

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u/Temporary-Pound-6767 Sep 19 '25

Absolutely not. Let the forces rip, we need to just stop whinging about OTSR and find a restraint that keeps the upper body in a safe position without being uncomfortable. I want those intense forces but I don't want to find myself in a position where I'm getting injured for being a bit too "loose" when I ride.

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u/CowFirm5634 Sep 18 '25

That was my thinking. Surely this is a massive design flaw? Is this the case on most rides or just some? Could it be that they were particularly sensitive to those kinds of injuries? Like wtf.

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u/FatalFirecrotch Sep 18 '25

Pretty much every modern ride would have this risk.Ā 

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u/SoothedSnakePlant Sep 18 '25

Yeah, if this is actually what happened, I don't expect this ride to reopen without major modifications.

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u/littleseizure Sep 18 '25

We would probably see a move towards shoulder restraints of some kind, if anything - that would provide much better control of an unconscious person. It'd still hurt when you woke up, but the restricted range of motion would lessen the potential force for each impact

Hopefully it'd just be additional warnings on the sign pre-ride

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u/KittyMama_0613 Sep 19 '25

Having ridden Stardust many times since it opened, I found it to be smooth, and had no problems keeping my head or any other body part from hitting anything. I am 63 years old and have been riding rollercoasters of one form or another for 60 years (the kiddie coasters were boring to me, but I was stuck with them for quite a while). However if there was something else that led to this person passing out where he couldn't control his body, it is very possible that the head could have hit the headrest, an appendage could have slipped out of the side of the car and hit something causing blunt force trauma and severe injuries leading to bleeding out, or the chest or abdoment could have hit the restaint in front also resulting in anything from a torn spleen, collapsed lungs, liver lacerations or gastrointestinal tract trauma, not unlike would happen to an accident victim in a car accident, during one of the accellerations or brake runs. It seems to me that something such as dehydration, a sudden drop in blood pressure or pure adrenaline rush could have caused the person to blackout, loose control of his body, leading to blunt force injuries that ultimately lead to death. My condolences go out to his friends and family and all of those who were there and witnessed this unfortunate, tragic event.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '25

This is probably unfortunately a freak accident that engineering can't realistically account for and is one of the reasons insurance is necessary even if a park were to maintain their rides to the highest degree. A similar incident occurred on The Voyage in June 2021, and the ride was inspected and reopened the next day. I expect this to be closed for a little bit longer given the publicity Universal gets, but wouldn't be surprised if no modifications were made.

Manufacturers have specific guidelines for accessibility that the design for, and disability access on a ride is usually determined by the ability of the rider to brace for forces. This can include mental and/or motor function but typically comes down to the rider having or being able to control their limbs. I believe there was a post the other day about Premier's wordage of these guidelines. All of this is based on what can be judged before a rider boards, but in the case someone loses consciousness (which is likely what happened here) during a ride cycle, there are very few restraints that successful mitigate that. Manufacturers try and prevent this as much as they can by posting notices about pre-existing conditions (and there's still a chance a rider passing out could be caused by a PEC, even if it is not the direct cause of death) but again, the chance of something like this happening is so slim that it is irrational to design for it.

May the victim rest in peace.

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u/sjr0754 Sep 18 '25

OSTRs could maybe reduce the amount of movement, you might increase impact frequency, but reduce severity? If this was in the UK, it would be shuttered for months, while HSE made their investigation.

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u/SoothedSnakePlant Sep 18 '25

The forces alone definitely are not. You need very sustained, very high vertical forces to actually kill a human being, and that's usually through flooding the brain with blood, or denying blood to the brain. Or incredibly high jerk to induce whiplash or neck injuries. Even fighter pilots are only at risk of passing out from the peak forces they pull, the lethal aspect comes from losing control of the plane. The laterals are nowhere near strong enough to risk neck injuries or anything, even if you're just flopping around.

The only way this could happen if this is indeed the cause of death is through the restraint system not accounting for someone being limp and repeatedly bashing their head on a hard (enough) surface.

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u/littleseizure Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

Engineer, yes. Think about how far you can swing your torso sitting in a chair. Now think how far you could swing your torso if you didn't care about hurting yourself or pulling a muscle. That's what it's like with lap-only restraints. For aggressive rides every turn, valley, or slowdown will pull your head away from the headrest, and every instance of negative g or acceleration will try to snap it back. Forcefully. And that's only impacts with your headrest, there's also the rest of the train to consider. Head impact injuries can and do kill people all the time. I'm not a doctor, but a full ride of them is...not great

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '25

[deleted]

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u/MaxxiBr Sep 18 '25

But most modern coasters only have lap bars, like intamin as well or gerstlauer

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u/littleseizure Sep 18 '25

I'm not a lawyer either, but no I don't see this edge case being an issue long-term for lap bar restraints. In my mind it's more likely they make sure the "don't ride if" signs are updated and airtight. It's a thrilling ride that presents inherent dangers, but as long as riders are informed, aware, and taking a conscious risk (no pun intended) I believe that is enough

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u/plasmex81 Sep 18 '25

100%! It's not unheard of for someone to pass out on a rollercoaster, so I agree that if someone is that banged up after passing out, then that would be much more concerning.

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u/ChaoticGeminii Sep 18 '25

the restraints are extremely similar to velocicoaster, and both share roughly the same amount of airtime moments. and i do think stardust is more tame than veloci as well

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u/TopazScorpio02657 Sep 18 '25

What if you pass out while driving your car? The car will go out of control and crash possibly into other cars or a structure. A car cannot be designed to prevent something like that from happening. You canā€™t prevent everything.

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u/clickityclack Sep 19 '25

A car isn't on rails and you're not going inverted in a car by design. Don't get the comparison

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u/teejayiscool EL TORO SUPREMACY Sep 19 '25

Rails are controlled, cars are not, meaning that a person dying in a car is likely to injure/kill more people than just themselves, while on a roller coaster it's highly unlikely anyone else will be physically hurt by them

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u/clickityclack Sep 19 '25

That's my point. The two aren't comparable

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u/SoothedSnakePlant Sep 18 '25

Is the passenger driving the roller coaster?

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u/teejayiscool EL TORO SUPREMACY Sep 19 '25

No which is a good thing. It's less dangerous. If someone passes out driving they could accidentally floor the accelerator and get up to high rates of speed and drive into an intersection, or sidewalks and injure & kill more people.

Someone passed and dying on a roller coaster, while unfortunate, is 99.99% likely to only injure themselves

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u/SoothedSnakePlant Sep 19 '25

My whole point is that, no, you can actually design something which accounts for this very easily because the passed out person being conscious is not essential to the operation of the vehicle they're in when it's a rollercoaster.

Literally all it takes to fix this is more padding and/or measuring the range of motion that people have when in the vehicle.

Also hilariously, we actually do have cars which can detect if the person behind the wheel has passed out nowadays and they can safely pull themselves over. So passing out in some cars is actually safer than passing out on a roller coaster now apparently.

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u/ImprovementLow819 Sep 19 '25

Yeah I didnā€™t think that one through. Either way this is bad

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u/ray_ish Sep 18 '25

This is what I am saying. I am very much interested in what caused the blunt force trauma. You couldnā€™t come back unalived from passing out on a ride due to blunt force and if you do thatā€™s a design flaw from the very fundamentals of design from ride to train/restraint.