Eric Litke

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Kay Kobussen had never ridden a roller coaster before, but a 2014 couples outing in the Wisconsin Dells seemed a good time to try something new.

The foursome boarded the OPA “Twister Coaster” — an indoor ride that topped out at 44 feet — at Mt. Olympus Resort, and all was well as they neared the end of the ride’s numerous hairpin turns.

Then her husband flew out.

When a malfunctioning lap bar released on a turn, 63-year-old Tony Theisen was thrown from the car and struck three metal poles before landing face first on the concrete 17 feet below, a police report said. He spent three weeks in a coma with a traumatic brain injury, in addition to breaking his back, neck, wrist and toes.

“I saw my now ex-husband out in space. No longer sitting in the car,” said Kobussen, who said she and Theisen divorced after his personality and temperament changed following the fall. “My life changed forever. I’m not the same person; neither is he.”

The ensuing investigation found Mt. Olympus had not addressed a 4-year-old safety bulletin (the industry equivalent of a recall) requiring daily maintenance on the lap bars. Operators also had failed to notice the defective locking mechanism on the lap bar and allowed the group to ride despite totaling 720 pounds — 60 pounds over the weight limit.

Wisconsin thrill seekers like Theisen take millions of rides each year at amusement parks and local fairs, drawn to the feeling of danger and emboldened by the assumption of safety. But it’s hard to say exactly how safe those rides are.

Two people have died and at least 75 were injured on state amusement rides in the past decade, according to a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin review of state records and media reports. But the state has no unified database to track such incidents and has no record of many incidents since it relies on operators to self-report.

⇒DATABASE: Get details on the 62 amusement ride injury incidents since 2006

Ride upkeep and monitoring are similarly dependent on the operators’ good intentions, as the state doesn't issue fines or forfeitures for violating requirements despite having the authority to do so. Industry officials say self-regulation works since injuries are bad for business and owners are motivated to avoid them, but critics point out there is also an inherent conflict of interest.

“When you have this type of self-enforcement, self-regulation, it’s just a modified version of the fox guarding the henhouse,” said Ken Martin, an amusement ride safety analyst and consultant based in Virginia.

Preventable injuries suffered by Theisen and others show that doesn’t always work.

No penalties for violations

Wisconsin amusement rides are overseen by the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS), but the goal is compliance with state law, not enforcement. The agency does not issue fines for violations of any kind.

That means the state's only response if operators don’t perform critical repairs, report injuries, get inspected or even register with the state — all things required by state law — is to have inspectors come back more often. The agency has six inspectors that spend most of their summer inspecting the 1,400 rides registered with DSPS.

“We don’t assess big fines or anything if people don’t do it, we just work with them to make sure that they do what they’re required to do under the code,” said Jeff Weigand, the agency’s assistant deputy secretary. “Our biggest focus is compliance and making sure that the rides are in operation and are operating safely.”

The agency does have the authority to impose non-criminal forfeitures for violations, but Weigand said that “is reserved for cases where an individual does not come into compliance with orders that we have given.” Weigand also said he believed DSPS could work with the attorney general or local prosecutors to pursue penalties against bad actors in an extreme case, but he doesn’t recall that happening anytime in the recent past.

It’s a system that doesn’t make sense to Brian Molenda, an Illinois man whose 10-year-old daughter, Brianne, was knocked out on a tea cup ride at Mt. Olympus in March 2013.

“Her head … kind of sagged out because of the speed, the motion of going in circles,” Molenda recalled. “Her head came in contact with another handle of another ride. … It hit her that hard and knocked her unconscious where she didn’t remember anybody for a couple days. It was pretty scary.”

The DSPS investigation showed Mt. Olympus failed to report the injury and failed to make repairs required by a prior safety bulletin. Molenda, who has worked in safety and injury prevention for 20 years, said those violations should have yielded fines.

“I don’t know what the point of (inspectors) coming out and certifying a ride is if they can’t do anything in the State of Wisconsin,” Molenda said. “It’s like you’re running through a process, but there’s no reason to do it if you can’t enforce it.”

The roller coaster and tea cup injuries occurred a year apart and both involved rides with unaddressed safety bulletins, but Mt. Olympus owner Nick Laskaris wouldn’t say whether the park made changes to ensure future bulletins were addressed. State records show 16 injury reports from Mt. Olympus since 2013.

“We’re doing the same as we always have and enhanced everything, as we always do every year,” he said.

When pressed for specific policy or practice changes, Laskaris ended the conversation. In a later interview, he also refused to address or even acknowledge the four violations noted in the investigation following Theisen’s injury.

“I’m going to deny that those even happened,” Laskaris said. “We were in compliance. It never came out in court to prove that we were in violation.”

Theisen, a Fremont resident who still has no memory of the entire trip to the Wisconsin Dells, reached a settlement with Mt. Olympus after accumulating about $1 million in medical bills, he said. An attorney for the park said a confidential settlement was reached after Theisen threatened to sue, and it involved no admission of liability. Mt. Olympus removed the ride after the incident.

State court records list about 20 personal injury lawsuits against the park since 2000. Three are pending, but the rest have been dismissed, generally as part of an out-of-court settlement. The records don’t include cases settled prior to reaching court, as was the case for Theisen and Molenda.

Carnival a ‘shady operation’

A system without financial penalties for violations can yield operators like Spectrum Entertainment.

The Michigan-based traveling carnival has racked up violations that in some cases were unaddressed despite repeated violation reports. Since DSPS doesn't issue fines, inspectors have taken to essentially following the carnival around the state.

“This is kind of a shady operation, and what we do is we just hound them,” Weigand said. “We do more inspections of them than we do anybody else because we know that they’re shady operators.”

The company owns 40 rides and sets up at about 25 events each year in Wisconsin, in addition to numerous Michigan sites, according to owner Dan Barbacovi. Spectrum typically splits into two units so it can run two carnivals each weekend.

Since 2014, DSPS records show 50 ride inspections have yielded violations for Spectrum at a dozen different sites, ranging from a single problem to a half-dozen.

State inspectors listed violations that included sharp screws protruding from seat backs, spliced and exposed electrical wires, missing or damaged seatbelts and other restraints, broken and sharp Plexiglas and rides without brakes.

The only financial consequence of the repeated failures was the standard inspection fee that ranged from $100 to $250 per ride.

Weigand said inspectors won’t let a ride run — for Spectrum or any other operator — if they find a violation that makes it unsafe, and they typically remain on site or return the next day to ensure repairs are made. Some repairs require waiting for parts, however, so inspectors will set a deadline and return later.

Spectrum had 12 violations since 2014 where inspectors returning at the later date found repairs still not properly made. Those violations included a foot pedal designed to stop a ride that was broken or bypassed, rotted wooden flooring and a Tilt-A-Whirl tub not properly seated on its pivot pin.

Read more:Fair-ride operator has code violations

Barbacovi said his company “works really good with the state” and he is surprised he would be identified as a problem. He attributed slow repairs to waiting for parts.

“I take safety, believe me, seriously. I don’t want anybody hurt. And if the state says not to run anything, it won’t run,” he said. “I would never run anything if it’s unsafe — I wouldn’t do that.”

Barbacovi said rides are greased and inspected every day and X-rayed each season to check for internal issues.

Reporting validity questioned

Two injuries have been reported on Spectrum rides in the past decade, in 2007 and 2008 at the Price County Fair in northern Wisconsin

But officials have no way of knowing how complete that tally is since the system largely relies on operators to report and has no consequences for failing to do so.

In fact, those are the only injuries listed at any county fair over the past decade. The state hosts about 75 county and district fairs each year.

Martin, the amusement ride analyst, said the low tally and lack of reports from all but one fair “doesn’t sound right at all.”

Media reports include a 16-year-old hospitalized after falling from a swing ride at the Jackson County Fair, but Weigand said DSPS has no record of that.

Wide variations in the number of reports per year raise questions as well. From 2006 to 2011 an average of 2.5 injuries were reported per year, and that jumped to 12 per year from 2012 to 2015.

Martin said ride operators are often trusted to police themselves because they want safety as much as any rider or government official, knowing a publicized incident will hurt their bottom line.

But there are disincentives as well, since an injury report could bring increased scrutiny from inspectors and a greater chance of media coverage. The Marquette (Mich.) County Fair canceled plans to use Spectrum for its rides after a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporter called to ask if they were aware of the company’s inspection record in Wisconsin. They weren’t.

Molenda, whose daughter was injured on the tea cup ride, said park employees appeared to be trying to do “damage control” after the incident and were hesitant to call 911, forcing him to do so himself. Later he was bounced around between employees and departments when he tried to file a complaint with the park. Eventually he was contacted by the officials who agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

“It took a lot of digging and a lot of phone calls and being persistent,” Molenda said. “(Mt. Olympus) didn’t want us to file any court action or litigation and came up with paying all the bills and a little money on top of that for our inconveniences, so we said ‘OK,’ just took that and moved on.”

He also filed a complaint with the state, which was the first DSPS had heard of the incident since Mt. Olympus didn’t report the injury.

Injury tracking inconsistent

State officials have no comprehensive database of injuries reported to them, and a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin investigation uncovered numerous incidents never reported to the state.

A review of media reports uncovered nine ride incidents since 2006 of which DSPS has no record, including one of the two fatalities.

Elizabeth Mohl, 16, died in July 2007 after falling from a ride operating at Lifest, a Christian music festival in Oshkosh. News reports said the incident was investigated by the Department of Commerce — one of two agencies that was dissolved to form DSPS in 2011 — but Weigand said there is nothing on file regarding that death.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin identified 62 amusement ride incidents that injured at least 75 people since 2006. State statute requires such incidents be reported to DSPS within two days if an injury needs treatment beyond first aid.

But DSPS only provided records of the required form for about 50 incidents since 2006, when USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin requested all forms from the last decade. A separate database of DSPS injury investigations had about 30, but many incidents were in one listing and not the other.

DSPS located additional report forms in response to two followup requests on specific incidents that were covered by the media but not part of the initially provided records. Weigand said some of the missing incidents were submitted to DSPS as complaints by the people involved but never reported by ride operators, others were reported but not released due to a staff oversight and others were never reported.

The inconsistent injury data means there is no comprehensive internal record of which rides or ride operators may cause a disproportionate share of injuries — much less any way to get that information to the public.

Despite the inconsistent tracking, Weigand said, the agency is confident in the institutional knowledge of its inspectors.

“We have a very good handle on the bad operators and the good operators,” he said. “I am very comfortable (with the state’s oversight process). Do accidents happen? Unfortunately, yes, they do. But whether it comes in as an accident report or from a complaint, our staff are there.”

Martin said Wisconsin’s level of oversight is about average, with state systems ranging from extensive tracking and enforcement to requiring only that ride operators carry insurance.

Injury reporting is also muddled because of the involvement of multiple state agencies. DSPS oversees mobile rides that travel to various carnivals and fixed-site rides like those at Mt. Olympus, but water ride oversight is shared with the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. DSPS examines ride plans and does an initial inspection, but injuries are reported to the consumer protection agency.

Lack of data hurts safety

Wisconsin is far from alone in its inability to track amusement ride injuries.

“There’s no accurate reporting of any kind of statistics to let consumers know what’s going on at this particular park,” Martin said.

The three recent attempts to put a national figure on ride injuries vary drastically in both scope and conclusions.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimated 30,000 injuries for 2015 based on its survey of 96 representative emergency rooms, but that’s a wide-ranging category that includes inflatable bounce houses (which accounted for about half of that tally last year) and zip lines.

A 2013 study in the journal Clinical Pediatrics estimated 4,400 injuries per year to children 17 and under, based on a detailed examination of the CPSC data that included only typical amusement rides. The study looked at all injuries from 1990 to 2010.

The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, a trade group, estimated 1,000 injuries in 2014, but that includes only fixed-site rides such as those in the Wisconsin Dells.

The senior author of the Clinical Pediatrics study, Dr. Gary Smith, said the CPSC data remains inherently limited because it includes only emergency room visits, not injuries treated in urgent care or physician’s offices.

It’s a system that led U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, to propose legislation each year from 1999 to 2011 calling for stricter federal regulation, data collection and inspections, according to the New York Times. The bills never passed.

Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said safety can’t improve without better data.

“With the inconsistencies in reporting, what’s really needed is some type of cohesive system, a network for surveillance, and also for implementation and enforcement of safety standards,” he said. “Although in general amusement parks and rides are safe, and these injuries are relatively rare, we can still do better. The only way we are going to be able to do that is if we have good data to help us identify where the problems are and to guide our interventions.”

Among the 62 injuries in Wisconsin in the past decade, nine were due to an equipment malfunction, eight were due to errors by the ride operator (three of those caused only injuries to the operator himself) and six were due to riders not following instructions, based on narratives in state records and media reports. The remaining injuries were caused by ride motion or fluke accidents like tripping while entering a ride.

Most ride injuries are minor, as 98 percent of those reported to CPSC did not require a hospital stay.

Laskaris, the Mt. Olympus owner, said injuries are an unavoidable part of the industry.

“Unfortunately incidents do happen in our world,” he said. “We do our checks every morning and all day. … As in any mechanical device, items fail, unfortunately.”

But Martin said the majority of injuries are the result of human error, either by operators or riders: “I’ve not yet seen one in my 20-plus years that couldn’t have been stopped … if one or more things were done.”

Eric Litke is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. Reach him at 920-453-5119, elitke@gannett.com or on Twitter @ericlitke.

Ride oversight in Wisconsin

Amusement rides are overseen by the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services, which has six inspectors who examine rides throughout the summer.

They are responsible for 1,400 rides, of which about 900 are mild rides for younger children and 500 are more intense rides for teens and adults.

Ride operators are required to register annually with the state, at which point they get a sticker showing half of the state of Wisconsin. They get the second half the sticker after undergoing an annual inspection.

Inspectors check the electrical system, structural integrity and safety bars, among other things in an inspection that can last several hours. They also review maintenance and staff training records.

Operators are required to inspect and test rides themselves before use each day and keep records of inspections, tests and operator training. Nondestructive tests using x-ray, dye or ultrasonic technology must be done to examine internal parts every three years or 3,000 hours of operation.

The agency has no power to fine operators for violations, so operators repeatedly failing inspections are typically just inspected more often.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission also oversees mobile rides (those that move to various fairs and carnivals), so they may join DSPS to investigate incidents that cause injuries. CPSC is also responsible for distributing safety bulletins, similar to a recall, when manufacturers identify safety changes that need to be made.

Source: Department of Safety and Professional Services, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Staying safe on amusement rides

Follow height, age, weight and health restrictions Follow seating and loading instructions — 32 percent of ride injuries nationally happen while loading and unloading (23 percent in Wisconsin) Always use safety equipment such as seat belts and safety bars Know your child — if you don’t think he or she will follow the rules, keep him or her off the ride Make sure the ride has a sticker showing the full state of Wisconsin, indicating it has both registered and been inspected Watch the ride first to make sure it runs well and has motion you’re comfortable with Trust your instincts — if something doesn’t look, sound or feel right, avoid the ride

Source: U.S. Pediatric Injuries Involving Amusement Rides 1990-2010 (study), Amusement ride consultant Ken Martin