If you liked learning about poor Debbie Stone, then this chapter is for you! If not, then this chapter is not for you! You have been warned!
Are there reasons for safety guidelines and mechanisms on rides? Of course. But do people always listen to them? Of course not.
And that's how these people died gruesome deaths.
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Date: October 2010- Disneyland Paris
Ride: It's a Small World
What Happened?
The year was 2010, the month was October, and a cleaner was working on a boat in Disneyland Paris when the ride suddenly (and accidentally) turned on. The fifty-three year old man was dragged beneath the fun multicolored boat and suffered multiple life-threatening injuries. He was airlifted to a hospital where he died shortly afterwards.
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Date: Summer 2009- Disney World (Particularly the Park: MGM Studios/Hollywood Studios)
Ride: Multiple rides,mostly being that of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (of which my mom once volunteered to be an 'extra' in)
What Happened?
Disney was having a rough year in 2009. There was one particularly brutal seven-week-long stretch in the summer, where three different employees lost their lives. One of them being thirty year old Anislav Varbanov. Mr. Varbanov was a performer in the "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular". During the rehearsal of the show, he injured is head which trying out a tumble. Multiple injuries caused by malfunctioning equipment had caused the show troubles in the past.
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Date: February 11, 2004- Disney Frontierland
Ride: Afternoon Frontierland Parade (Not a ride, obviously)
What Happened?
The streets are lined up with happy awaiting kids, weary parents, and the kids at heart eating their overpriced fruity funnel cakes or turkey legs, and then the music is heard. And this happens daily. What doesn't happen daily is that a beloved dog gets run over by a beast. What's being referred to here is the incident that happened on February 11, 2004. A thirty-eight year old named Javier Cruz was gearing up for a daily afternoon parade in Disney's Frontierland. Dressed as the dog Pluto, he walked around giving high-fives and waving at adoring crowds. That is until he apparently caught his foot and tripped, falling in front of the Beauty and the Beast float. He was not able to move out of the way in time and was struck then killed. Forced to lift the float off Cruz's lifeless body using forklifts, Disney was then fined by the OSHA ($6,500) for a violation of employee safety. Cruz had two children. (I am not 100% sure if this incident happened during a private practice for an upcoming parade or during an actual parade, though most accounts and evidence suggest the latter.)
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Date: September 5, 2003- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
What Happened?
In the fall of 2003, during a fun ride on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a man from Gardena, California named Marcelo Torres died. Several others (approximately 10) were injured, but the twenty-two year old was killed when an improperly maintained train car derailed, striking the top of a tunnel and then landing on top of another car. To top that off, Torres received blunt force trauma in the chest and died soon afterwards after bleeding all over the damn place. (The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is one of the most dangerous rides owned by Disney and is in three of the Disney parks. In 2005, the family of Marcelo Torres reached a substantial out-of-court settlement with Disney on the matter.)
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Date: September 22, 2000- Disney World, Land
Ride: Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin Ride
What Happened?
September 22, 2000, four year old Brandon Zucker tumbled beneath the taxi cab at Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin Ride. Following company policy, Disney security was alerted before paramedics, and it was ten minutes before the Brandon was freed. He had no pulse, and though he was revived, he suffered irreversible brain damage. Disney was facing a catastrophic legal and public relations scandal, so on October 7, 2000 Disney changed their regulations regarding contacting emergency personnel. Meanwhile, they claimed that is had nothing to do with Brandon's accident. An out-of-court settlement (which did not require Disney to assume blame for the incident) paid for Brandon's medical expenses, but he never really recovered. He never spoke or walked again, and he died on January 26, 2009, at the age of thirteen. (The Roger Rabbit ride's Toontown home is long gone from Disney World and in it's place lies a whole new expansion of circus, princess, and fun. Though I vaguely remember Toontown, I know that the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin Ride kind of resembles the Snow White's Scary Adventures and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh rides.)
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Date: February 14, 1999- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Fantasyland Skyway
What Happened?
Valentine's Day, 1999- Custodian Raymond Barlow, a 65 year-old, was cleaning the platform at the Fantasyland Skyway station, which was located forty feet above the park, when the ride came on by accident. The gondolas came towards him and ended up knocking him off the platform. As he fell, he tried to grab onto a passing gondola to break his fall, his hand just missed as he slipped and plummeted 40 feet into a flower bed by the Dumbo ride, fatally wounding him.
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Date: December 24, 1998- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Sailing ship (Columbia) on the Rivers of America
What Happened?
A tragic Christmas Eve accident, one Disneyland cast member and two guests were injured when a rope used to secure the sailing ship Columbia as it docked on the Rivers of America tore the metal cleat to which it was attached, loosening it. Such cleat sailed through air and struck the heads of two guests who were waiting to board the ship, Phi Dawson, 33, of Duvall, Washington, and his wife, Thuy Vuong, 43. There was only one fatality, and that was of Dawson. He was declared brain dead two days later and died when his life support system was disconnected. (As the source stated ( I like how they wrote this):) "This accident resulted in the first guest death in Disneyland's history that was not attributable to any negligence on the part of the guest (it was the result of a combination of insufficiently rigorous ride maintenance and an insufficiently experienced supervisor's assuming an attraction operator's role) and prompted a movement for greater government oversight of theme park operations and safety procedures."
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Date: 1994, 1996, 2008- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Disneyland Hotel
What Happened?
Suicides have been a more than common theme for the Disneyland Hotel, not only before the turn of the twenty-first century, but afterwards as well. Several somewhat well-known suicides have taken place at the hotel for the beloved theme park. I'll tell you about three. One happened regarding when a dentist, John Newman Jr., leapt to his death from the 14th floor of the Disneyland Hotel. As for the dates listed above, two more people jumped from the 9th and 14th floors. No one can really speculate why these people jumped, but they sure chose a hell of a place to do the deed at.
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Date: January 3, 1984- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Matterhorn
What Happened?
On January 3, 1984, Dolly Regene Young, a 48-year-old Fremont, CA, resident, was killed on the Matterhorn in an incident. About two-thirds of the way down the mountain, Young was thrown from her seat into the path of an oncoming bobsled. Her head and chest then was pinned beneath its wheels. A later examination of Young's sled revealed that her seatbelt was not fastened at the time of the accident. But the odd thing however, was that since she was riding alone in the rear car of a sled, no one could determine whether or not she had deliberately unfastened her belt. If she had, suicide would have been the ruling- but it's still really a shot in the dark. No one really saw anything regarding her unfastening or what happened in that sense. Remarkably, however, this incident was extremely similar to the first Disneyland guest death nearly twenty years earlier.
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Date: June 4, 1983- Disneyland, World (?)
Ride: Rivers of America
What Happened?
Celebrating their graduations and one of their eighteenth birthdays, two friends from Albuquerque, New Mexico were visiting the Disney parks and thought it would be fun to drink some liquid poison (alcohol) and sneak into an area on Tom Sawyer's Island marked "Cast Members Only". Philip Straughan, an now 18-year-old drowned in the Rivers of America in yet another Grad Nite incident. Straughan and a friend had been drinking quite heavily that evening. Sneaking into a "Cast Members Only" area along the river and untying an inflatable rubber maintenance motorboat, they decided to take it for a joyride around the river. Unable to adequately control the boat, do to the alcohol they drank earlier, they struck a rock near Tom Sawyer Island. Straughan was thrown into the water. His friend traveled back to shore to seek help, but the 18 year-old drowned long before his body was finally located an hour later.
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Date: June 7, 1980- Disneyland, World (?)
Ride: People Mover
What Happened?
In the month of June 1980, a recent San Diego high school graduate was killed on the People Mover in an accident much like the one that had befallen another idiotic guest thirteen years earlier. Gerardo Gonzales, in the early morning hours of a Grad Nite celebration at the park, was climbing from car to car as the People Mover entered the SuperSpeed Tunnel adjacent to the former America Sings building. The graduate stumbled and fell onto the track, where an oncoming train of cars crushed him beneath its wheels and dragged his body a few hundred feet before being stopped by a ride operator.
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Date: June 13, 1977- India
Ride: None
What Happened?
Matthew Garber, as we all best know him from playing Michael Banks in Mary Poppins. He also starred in two other Disney films, including The Three Lives of Thomasina and The Gnome-Mobile. He quit acting in the late sixties and in 1976, he contracted hepatitis while in India. His father sent for him, but before he could make it home to London, the disease spread to his pancreas. His family denied that drug use had been to blame, claiming Matthew had probably eaten bad meat. Though many people have been skeptical. He was twenty-one years old when he died.
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Date: July 8, 1974- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: America Sings
What Happened?
See previous chapter on Debbie Stone.
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Date: 1973- Disneyland, World (?)
Ride: Rivers of America (Disneyland or Walt Disney World (?))
What Happened?
Two brothers, 18 years old and 10 years old, hid in Tom Sawyer's Island until closing time. When the Brooklyn natives, Bogden Delaurot (18) and his little brother (10), tried to exit the island by swimming across the Rivers of America, they were unsuccessful. Neither could swim very well. While the little boy was rescued from his desperate doggy paddling by a ride operator, his older brother (Bogden) drowned. His body soon found the following day.
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Date: March 1968- New York City
Ride: None
What Happened?
1968- some boys were playing in an abandoned tenement building in New York City, when they stumbled upon the corpse of a junkie surrounded by religious pamphlets and empty beer bottles. The man (who was thirty-one-years-old) had died from a heart attack brought on by years of drug use. There was no identification on the body, and the man was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. Nineteen months later, the mother of a child star-- one who had starred in several Disney movies including Song of the South and the thriller of which he won an Oscar called The Widow-- contacted the FBI and Disney Studios in a desperate search to find her missing son. The junkie was dug up and a fingerprint match was made which confirmed the tragedy; the body belonged to Bobby Driscoll-- best known as the voice of Peter Pan. (He was later buried next to his father in a seaside grave)
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Date: August 1967- Disneyland (most likely), World (?)
Ride: People Mover
What Happened?
A seventeen-year-old from Hawthorne, California named Ricky Lee Yama was killed when he disregarded safety instructions (much like how Gerardo Gonzales did in 1980) and exited his People Mover car as the ride was passing through a tunnel. Yama slipped as he was jumping from car to car and was crushed to death beneath the wheels of oncoming cars. Which teaches you folks, don't jump from car to car when traveling through a tunnel- or ever!
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Date: January 12, 1967
Ride: None
What Happened?
This one really isn't a death at Disneyland or World, I just felt like it should go here in not in a potential new chapter. Everyone knows that Disney was cremated, his ashes interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Although, even to this day, rumors endure that Disney was cryogenically frozen after his death. A rumor of which members of his family have adamantly denied. His daughter, Diane, stated that Walt had probably 'never even heard of the procedure'. The first, known, cryonically preserved person was Dr. James Bedford, who was frozen on Jan 12, 1967, about a month after Walt Disney had died. So why is this one here? Walt passed away and he's the Disney-est Disney death out there, the speculation and possibility of him being cryogenically frozen (much like Norman Osborn's head) is amazing. Who knows, Walt could be hidden in his secret apartments located in the Cinderella Castle and Main Street USA of Walt Disney World. Super Spoooooky.
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Date: June 1966- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Monorail
What Happened?
Thomas Guy Cleveland, a 19-year-old Northridge, CA, resident, decided he wanted to go to Disneyland. F-ck the cops and the money needed to get in, he was going to get in for free- and maybe break an ankle on the jump in. Wanting to be a parkour champ, he scaled the park's sixteen-foot high outer fence during a Grad Nite. He then decided to climb onto the Monorail track and walk along it until he was in the park, his plan then was to jump/climb down and party. During his little parkour screw the law stunt, Cleveland ignored a security guard's shouted warnings of an approaching Monorail train. He failed to leap clear of the track. Finally deciding on climbing down onto a fiberglass canopy beneath the track, he thought he was safe- that was not to be the case. The clearance wasn't enough and the oncoming train struck and killed him, dragging his body 30 to 40 feet down the track. Lesson Learned.
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Date: December 15, 1966- Burbank, California
Ride: The Disney-est of them all (aka none)
What Happened?
All his life Walt Disney was known to be a big smoker, so when he died in 1966 from lung cancer (he was 65) there was nothing unexpected or tragic about it- because kids, smoking kills you. But Mr. Walt Disney being Mr. Walt Disney had to leave the world one last mysterious ploy about his life. After he'd lost the ability to speak, he communicated by writing notes on a pad of paper. The last two words he wrote were "Kurt Russell," the name of a young actor who had just begun working with Disney Studios, appearing in the film Follow Me, Boys!. The words significance have never been decided or determined- Kurt Russel has claimed to have no clue what Walt wanted or would have wanted. There was some evidence that claimed that he may have also written something else after writing Kurt's name, but Kurt, himself, has asserted that his name was the final communication of Walt's. Period. So no one has really put up any debate about it since.
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Date: May 1964- Disneyland (Anaheim), California
Ride: Matterhorn
What Happened?
May 1964: Mark Maples, a 15-year-old Long Beach, CA, resident, was killed when he tried to stand up on the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Maples (or his companion) foolishly unbuckled his seatbeat and attempted to stand up as their bobsled neared the peak of the mountain. Maples lost his balance and was thrown from the sled to the track below, fracturing his skull and ribs and causing internal injuries. He died three days later.
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Date: November 1938- The elder Disney's home in Northern Hollywood (California)
Ride: None
What Happened?
After the big gamble and success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt and his brother Roy had become rather wealthy men. As a gift to their parents, the brothers built them a home in Northern Hollywood (California) area. A few weeks in, a faulty furnace was the cause of Flora Disney's death (a death made possible by asphyxiation from carbon monoxide). Both Walt and Roy felt terrible and it haunted Walt for the rest of his life, especially since they were the ones who paid for and built the house. It is speculated that the reason why the Disney's had such a strong theme of the absence of a motherly or parental figure in some or most of their movies is because of the death of their mother, Flora Disney. This is completely untrue. When Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was made there was an absence of any parental figure, save the exception of the vain and evil step mother that was established in the beginning of the film. When Flora Disney died, the studio was almost complete with the movies of Bambi and Pinocchio- both of which have either no parental figure (except for the woodcutter) or their parental figure (usually a mother) passes away much like how Bambi's mother was killed by the hunter in the woods. (Sorry, spoilers) This has and always will be a long and ever occurring trend with Disney movies, occasionally we'll have a break from the norm- such as that of Tangled or 101 Dalmatians- but it'll always stay the same.
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That took forever.
I hope you guys enjoyed this crazy chapter. I may make future installations like this but instead using supposedly true 'ghost stories and myths' about Disney, various accidents and deaths regarding the various parks around the world, etc. Let me know if you guys would like to see anything like that. If you'd like to know any more about this lovely stuff I write about, you know where you can shoot me a message.
Pictures for this one are really hard to come by since there is so much information, so I'll post some pictures under the tags 'CreepyUnknownAndAbandonedDisney' 'OhYouStupidStupidChild' and 'LokiandLunaWattpad' with descriptions for what the pictures are and whatnot.
Happy Hunting!
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