=>I was Googling that day and stumbled on to this forum and registered to the board to share my experiences of that day.
I was 16 at the time. It was my FIRST DAY of work at Kings Island as a summer job. I was placed at the Chiquita Frozana frozen chocolate covered banana cart for a shift that lasted from 11am to 8pm. The cart was near the entrance of Hanna Barbara Land (now Snoopy world) and the old Ivy Tunnel (since taken down unfortunately) that lead to Watertown. It was a pretty boring shift having to stand by yourself that entire time with no one to talk to.
The only interesting thing about that shift was that it was "Gay Day" which made for some interesting "people watching." There was one humorous incident involving a group of 8 or so gay males. I was given a scale to weigh the frozen bananas and told not to sell any that were less than 3 oz. So to pass the time in my boredom, I began to weigh all the bananas in my cart and put the too small ones in a separate box. Sometime during the day, a group of 8 gay males came up to my cart and ordered some bananas. As I was working the cash register, one of them reached into the cart and grabbed a banana from the box that had the undersized bananas. I then said to him, "Don't take that one, it is not big enough" or words to that effect. I remember his response like it was yesterday, "OH YEAH, I WANT A BIIIG ONE!" and the whole group burst into laughing. I was a little uncomfortable, but was laughing too because it really was a funny line. Other than that, my shift was uneventful.
Anyway, when my shift was over at 8, I clocked out and walked to the employee lockerroom, changed out of my uniform and into my street clothes, and then turned in my uniform to the laundry workers who wash the employee uniforms. I then left and walked to my car in the employee parking lot and began to drive home. As I was driving down the K.I. employee access road which ran in front of Waterworks to Western Row, I was passed by firetrucks with sirens and lights flashing. Obviously, I had no idea at the time what was going on. In fact, I did not think much about it and assumed something must have caught on fire at the park. I proceeded to drive to my home in Fairfield.
This would have been sometime around 8:30ish given I was off work at 8pm and the time it took me to make the walk to the lockerroom, change clothes, walk to my car, etc. That matches the timeline Shaggy put in the post above for the first incident.
I found out about what happened later that night on the local news which immediately made me think of the firetrucks I saw as I was driving out of the park.
I am glad that my shift had just ended before any of the deaths occurred.
When I came back to work for the next shift the next day or the following day (can't remember), I was given strict instructions to not answer any questions about the incident from the park's guests and refer any questions to Public Relations.
Looking back it was one of the most surreal days of my life: 1) First day of work in what I thought would be a really fun job (it was!), 2) "Gay Day," and 3) 3 deaths from 2 unrelated incidents. I worked the rest of the summer, the following winterfest, and the next summer. Never again did anything really out of the ordinary occur at the park at my time there.
It was one of the most fun jobs I ever had (except when I got put on the boring Frozana cart). I made great friends working at K.I. who I still talk to. Although I did not know her at the time, my future wife was working at K.I. the same seasons I was and we met through mutual K.I. connections many years later.
