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Information about the Son of Beast Incident


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Maureen,

Continuing with coaster-chickie's question regarding what caused the wood to break, would this have been caused by the recent re-working of the ride at all?

By the way Maureen...thanks for all you do! You are the *best* at what you do and I am thankful that Kings Island has someone like you on their team. Judging from posts I've seen here and on other places (Coasterbuzz, for instance) others agree with me.

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Probably not.  She's doing this for YOU, the crazy fan people of the net.  As much of a tool as a site like this can be to the park, it's also risky about starting rumors... especially in a situation like this.  She wants to cut out of the fluff and the false facts that the media has put out.

Maureen, do you think this incident with SOB will affect how other rides will be inspected in the future?

Cutting out the fluff and false facts that the media is putting out is why I thought it would be helpful information on their website. I think that I have read every article published about this situation and I do not think any of them had the same information.

Maureen - Thank you for giving us the facts. You are a huge asset to PKI and like everyone else; I hope that the Cedar Fair management can see this.

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You're right - there has been a lot of conflicting information in the media, and over the last two days I have been working to correct that. You may have noticed that the Enquirer posted a correction today on the front page of the Local section. I was so thankful for that. Channel 5 has done something similar.

I think the main issue is that I am not the only person providing comment. Of course, I can not speak for the guests who were on the train - only they can do that. The train did not stop on the tracks, but it may have felt like it did on the final brake right before they entered the station. If you already feel bad, that final brake would be overwhelmingly strong. Does that make sense? Yes, the train completed a full cycle, but to guests on the train, it may have been something completely different.

I will continue to pursue the truth with everyone I speak with. Please help me to do that if you are asked for comment. I remain consistant with our messaging and will do so every single day.

Have a great night. We'll all be back tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday.

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Cracked beam was vertical, park says

ENQUIRER STAFF REPORT

The cracked timber that may have caused dozens of people to be injured on Kings Island's Son of Beast roller coaster Sunday was a vertical support beam -- not a horizontal one as first described -- park officials say.

The beam is in the double-helix area -- the dramatic corkscrew turn about halfway through the ride. The crack is not visible from the ground but was found when state inspectors walked the tracks Monday morning. Park officials say the beam likely cracked during the 4:45 p.m. ride Sunday. The problem would not have been seen during the daily early morning inspection that is done on all rides before the park opened for business, said park spokeswoman Maureen Kaiser.

Officials said 27 people were taken to hospitals for mostly minor injuries or for precautionary reasons after the ride stopped abruptly. The Son of Beast remains closed indefinitely. The investigation could take several weeks. The world's tallest, fastest wooden coaster has provided about a million rides a year since it opened in 2000, park officials said. State officials could not be reached for comment.

Not exactly a correction, but this is what's on enquirer.com.

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Just to let everyone know I tried to let people know of the Q and A being answered on here and I was riduculed by a 40 year old computer geek telling me to get a girl and stop eating cheetos and beign fat. How he assumed this i dunno ironically I broke up with my gf today so yea weird but back on topic. My thread was not closed yet deleted and I now know that I wont be posting there for a while. I love PKIC and PKI and maureen of course and thank you for making everyones day more informed and better ) the site shall remain nameless

thank you

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Maureen,

First of all, thank you so much for clearing all of this up for us. I had the pleasure of working with you last season at Bubba gumps, and I just wanted to let you and everyone know that you're an awesome person to be around. My only question is if you've considered hosting a KI blog, like the ones Tyler and Tony do at CP and Paula at Holidayworld?

Thank you

~DR

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Just to let everyone know I tried to let people know of the Q and A being answered on here and I was riduculed by a 40 year old computer geek telling me to get a girl and stop eating cheetos and beign fat. How he assumed this i dunno ironically I broke up with my gf today so yea weird but back on topic. My thread was not closed yet deleted and I now know that I wont be posting there for a while. I love PKIC and PKI and maureen of course and thank you for making everyones day more informed and better ) the site shall remain nameless

thank you

I'm not going to mention that web site by name either. But, I think I frequent that same site and saw the exact topic you are referring to. However, I had no idea it was you. I thought that you were treated rudely.

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Is it clear yet what caused the timber to break? was it stress from the weight and speed of the trains or was the wood there just weak?

It's not yet clear what caused the timber to break; however, we should know more about that when the full Department of Agriculture report is released within the next few weeks or so.

Happy Friday!

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Im no expert by any means, but I doubt it. The stresses would have the welds or bolts holding the steel together snap probabily on a routine basis. The Voyage was specifically designed to handle the stresses, and is built that way. I doubt they would be able to retrofit a steel frame into this situation.

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If you look closley at mean streak you can notice large steel I beam in places were there is a great deal of weight. I dont believe they will put steel brasing on there because mabey it was a bad piece of wood. I am not sure of the total amount of wood on all the wooden coasters in PKI. But for all of that wood how many pices are just plain out bad. Im just saying its not far fetched that there could be a beam or two of wood that is bad and needed to be repaired and mabey this piece of wood brok at the wrng time. By no means do I know anything about this but Im bored and wanted to throw my 1 cent in.

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