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Cedar Point's Raptor roller coaster was painted in the off-season, and the interior fence around the ride was removed. The fence will be replaced, but will be no taller than the original, according to park officials. A park guest was struck and killed by a roller coaster train last summer after he jumped two fences to retrieve a phone he had lost on the ride.

(Susan Glaser, The Plain Dealer)

SANDUSKY, Ohio - Officials at Cedar Point say the park will make no changes in fence height, signage or other safety procedures in response to the death last summer of a man who entered a restricted area under a ride and was hit by an oncoming roller coaster train.

The man, 45-year-old James A. Young of East Canton, jumped over two fences in an attempt to retrieve a cell phone he had just lost on the ride. (Though family members believe he may have also lost his wallet, the official Sandusky police report states he was looking for a phone.)

Young's father, also named James A. Young, said he was disappointed in Cedar Point's decision.

James A. Young of East Canton was killed at Cedar Point last summer.

"I would never want anyone to have to go through what we've gone through," said Young.

"Certainly my son shouldn't have gone over the fence. There's no doubt about that. But then I believe the fence shouldn't have been so easy to get over."

He added, "I believe they should make it completely inaccessible for someone to get into restricted areas."

The elder Young, also of East Canton, said his family has not yet decided whether they will sue Cedar Point for any responsibility the park may have had in his son's death.

His son, a teacher, was a long-time fan of Cedar Point who visited the park at least once a year.

When Young rode the Raptor in August, the roller coaster was surrounded by two fences - a decorative exterior fence, 4 feet high, and an interior chain-link fence, between 5 and 6 feet high. Several signs on the interior fence read: "Warning, Restricted Area, Do Not Enter" and "Authorized Personnel Only."

The interior fence was removed during the off-season this year so that Cedar Point crews could paint the ride.

In an interview at the park in January, Cedar Point General Manager Jason McClure said the interior fence would be replaced - but at the same height as the one that was removed.

Park officials met at the end of the operating season last year, as they do every year, to review any safety issues, said McClure. "We did not make any revisions related to Raptor."

He added that the park exceeds state law and industry standards for fence heights around its rides.

Cedar Point's Raptor in August: two fences surround the roller coaster to keep visitors from entering the area under the ride.

Ken Martin, an amusement park safety consultant based in Virginia, wasn't surprised by Cedar Point's decision to make no changes in response to the accident.

"If an amusement park has the ability to change something, you would think that they would do it," he said. "But if changing it would point out their liability on a particular issue, I doubt that an amusement park is going to do anything too aggressively."

It's not as if the incident at Cedar Point was the first time an amusement park guest has jumped a fence and been killed by an oncoming train, he said.

There have been at least six similar incidents in the past 20 years involving rides similar to Raptor - so-called inverted roller coasters with trains that hang below their tracks and come within 5 or 6 feet of the ground.

Built in 1994, Raptor, designed by Swiss firm Bolliger and Mabillard, reaches a top speed of 57 mph and flips riders upside down six times.

Young, the man killed at Cedar Point, was 6 feet 6 inches tall, and was hit by the side of a coaster train as it sped past.

Kenneth Nemire, an expert in human factors psychology, a field that studies how people interact with products, told the Plain Dealer last summer that amusement park guests may not be fully aware of the dangers posed by these types of rides.

"A hidden hazard under inverted coasters are the riders' dangling legs that travel 50 to 60 mph within a few feet of the ground and will kill you if they hit you," he said. "Parks need to place warnings on the perimeter fencing that explicitly describe the hazard and indicate that entering the area under the ride can result in death."

In 2008, a 17-year-old boy was killed at Six Flags Over Georgia near Atlanta in an incident similar to the one at Cedar Point: He jumped two fences, reportedly to retrieve a hat, and was struck by an oncoming train on Batman: The Ride, an inverted roller coaster designed by the same company that designed Raptor.

Within a few days of the accident, the state of Georgia ordered Six Flags to increase the size and number of warning signs on the fence that surrounded the ride, and to include the words "Extreme Danger."

Michael Thurmond, Georgia's labor commissioner at the time, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shortly after the incident: "The signs that are out there now meet the standards. But it is our opinion these additional steps should be taken to enhance the safety of the surrounding area."

In Ohio, the state Department of Agriculture regulates amusement ride safety. A spokesman for the department said the state has not asked Cedar Point to make any changes in fencing or signage as a result of the Raptor incident.

State law, which follows guidelines developed by ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials), requires fencing around all rides to be at least 42 inches high, a standard that Cedar Point exceeds.

Ken Martin, the ride safety expert, said that fences can always be made higher - and determined people will always find a way around or over them.

"There's no way that you can make something 100 percent, absolutely safe. It's very difficult to do."

More concerning to him than fence heights are amusement parks' inconsistent enforcement of their own loose-items policies.

Most parks, he said, prohibit guests from carrying loose items onto rides - but their enforcement of those policies is irregular at best.

Cedar Point, and other parks, must find a way to keep riders from bringing items like cell phones, keys and glasses onto their high-speed thrill rides, agreed Edward Pribonic, an engineer and ride safety consultant in California, who formerly worked for Disneyland.

"If you want to go higher and faster and steeper, you have to be prepared to see that nothing comes off that roller coaster at 85 miles an hour," he said.

Riders who may foolishly try to retrieve their lost items aren't the only ones at risk, he said. Fellow riders and spectators can be seriously injured if hit by flying keys or phones.

YouTube, he said, is filled with evidence - in the form of self-shot, point-of-view videos on rides -- of guests' violating many amusement parks' no-phones-on-rides policies.

"You can see it's not being very well policed," said Pribonic.

Last year, two parks in Orlando, Universal Studios Florida and Universal's Islands of Adventure, made news when they installed metal detectors outside several of their most intense thrill rides.

The intent wasn't to keep weapons out of the park - metal detectors are stationed at the parks' front entrances for that purpose -- but rather to make sure that riders aren't carrying anything onto the rides: no phones, no keys, no loose change.

At Cedar Point, riders are prohibited from bringing purses, beverage containers and other loose items past the entrance of some rides, including Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster. Lockers are provided at some rides, while collective bins are used at others, including Raptor.

But riders are not asked to empty their pockets and many riders do keep phones and other items with them when they ride.