Disney World Fire Latest In Accidents For The Orlando Theme Park

A Disney World fire temporarily shut down the ever popular Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride this past Saturday in Florida.

The Disney World fire began when the embers from the nearby Magic Kingdom fireworks display landed on one of the ride’s buildings and started the fire. The fireworks are a nightly Disney World tradition. There were no injuries in the fire and officials were able to quickly get the flames out. The fire began around 10 p.m. and resulted in a brief two-hour shut down of the Seven Dwarfs ride; however, Disney World officials were able to quickly get things moving again and the ride was reopened by midnight.

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is Disney World’s newest ride. It has been in operation for only about six months and the lines for the ride can be hours long.

While Disney World is considered to be reasonably safe as theme park track records go, this fire is not the only mishap to have occurred in recent years. The theme park was held responsible in a gruesome and tragic incident with the Sailing Ship Columbia when one of the ropes responsible for anchoring the Disney World ship broke lose in a fury and the attached metal cleat struck people on the nearby dock, killing one man and severely disfiguring his wife. Their children were unharmed but witnessed the entire gruesome scene. Disney World settled with the family for $20 million.

In addition to the fire, just this year, a 12-year-old boy lost 4 of his fingers on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The same ride was also responsible for an accident in July where a British tourist also lost part of his fingers as well.

In the third quarter for 2014, a dozen people reported serious injuries at Disney World as compared to only 2 at nearby Universal Studio in Orlando and one such report at the Sea World theme park according to the quarterly report. According to The Orlando Sentinel, the state of Florida does not require any safety inspections for the theme parks’ rides and only requires them to voluntarily report injuries which result in a hospital stay of more than 24 hours; therefore, the number of actual injuries, including minor ones, is unknown but are likely to be much higher than reported.

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