Action Park was a waterpark/motor themed park open from 1978 to 1996 in Vernon Township, New Jersey, on the property of the former Vernon Valley / Great Gorge ski area, today Mountain Creek.
Its popularity went hand in hand with a reputation for poorly-designed, unsafe rides; inattentive, underaged, underpaid and sometimes under-the-influence employees; equally intoxicated and underprepared visitors — and the poor safety record that followed from this perfect storm of circumstances. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park, and it was nicknamed "Traction Park", "Accident Park", "Class Action Park", "Danger Park" and "Death Park" by doctors at nearby hospitals due to the number of severely injured parkgoers they treated. While little action was taken by state regulators despite a history of repeat violations, in its later years personal-injury lawsuits forced the closure of more and more rides and finally the park itself.
Action Park's most successful years were the mid-1980s. Most rides were still open, and the park's later reputation for danger had not yet developed. In 1982, the deaths of two visitors within a week of each other and ensuing permanent closure of one ride took place, but that hardly dampened the flow of crowds.
The park's fortunes began to turn with two deaths in summer 1984 and the legal and financial problems that stemmed from the lawsuits. A state investigation of improprieties in the leasing of state land to the resort led to a 110-count grand jury indictment against the nine related companies that ran the resort and their executives for operating an unauthorized insurance company. Many took pretrial intervention to avoid prosecution; head Eugene Mulvihill pled guilty that November to five insurance fraud-related charges. Still, attendance remained high and the park remained profitable at least on paper. The park entertained over a million visitors a year, with as many as 12,000 coming on some of the busiest weekends.
Park officials said this made the injury and death rate statistically insignificant. Nevertheless, the director of the emergency room at a nearby hospital said they treated from five to ten victims of park accidents on some of the busiest days, and the park eventually bought the township of Vernon extra ambulances to keep up with the volume.
Many of Action Park's attractions were unique. They gave patrons more control over their experience than they would have at most other amusement parks' rides, but for the same reason were considerably riskier.
The one ride that has come to symbolize Action Park and its extreme thrill-seeking was, paradoxically, almost never used.
In the mid-1980s GAR built an enclosed water slide, not unusual for that time, and indeed the park already had several. But for this one they decided to build, at the end, a complete vertical loop of the kind more commonly associated with roller coasters. Employees have reported they were offered hundred-dollar bills to test it. "It didn't buy enough booze to drown out the memory", said Fergus.
It was opened for one month in summer 1985 before it was closed at the order of the state's Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety, a highly unusual move at the time. One worker told a local newspaper that "there were too many bloody noses and back injuries" from riders, and it was widely rumored, and reported in Weird NJ, that some of the test dummies sent down before it was opened had been dismembered. A rider also reportedly got stuck at the top of the loop due to insufficient water pressure, and a hatch had to be built at the bottom of the slope to allow for future extrications.
The Tidal Wave Pool: The first patron death occurred here in 1982; another visitor would drown in this common water-park attraction five years later. It was, however, the number of people the lifeguards saved from a similar fate that made this the only Waterworld attraction to gain its own nickname, "The Grave Pool." Twelve lifeguards were on duty at all times, and on high-traffic weekends they were known to rescue as many as 30 people, compared to the one or two the average lifeguard might make in a typical season at a pool or lake.
The Tarzan Swing: This was a steel arch hanging from a 20-foot (6.1 m)-long (6 m) cable over a spring-fed pool. Patrons waited in long lines for the chance to hang from it, swing out over the water, then jump off as the beam reached its height. Some patrons hung on too long and scraped their toes on the concrete at the far side. Others used the ride properly, but then were surprised to find out the water underneath was very cold. It was cold enough, in fact, that the lifeguards sometimes had to rescue people who were so surprised by the sudden chill they couldn't swim out. In 1984, one man died from a heart attack after experiencing the swing.
Surf Hill: This ride, common to other water parks at the time, allowed patrons to slide down a water-slick sloped surface on mats into small puddles, until they reached a foam barrier after an upslope at the end. Barriers between lanes were minimal, and people frequently collided with each other on the way down, or at the end. The seventh lane was known as the "back breaker," due to its special kicker two-thirds of the way down intended to allow jumps and splashdowns into a larger puddle.[13] Employees at the park used to like eating at a nearby snack bar with a good view of the attraction, since it was almost guaranteed that they could see some serious injuries, lost bikini tops, or both.
Super Speed Water Slides: These were two water slides, set slightly apart from the rest of the park, that took advantage of nearly vertical slopes to allow riders to attain higher speeds than usually possible. hose who made it to the bottom found their progress arrested by water, which made a large splash, and then a small pool. The speed at which riders met the end resulted in many getting wedgies and enemas from the experience.
Six people are known to have died directly or indirectly from rides at Action Park:
On July 8, 1980, a 19-year-old park employee was riding the alpine slide when his car jumped the track and his head struck a rock, killing him.
On July 24, 1982, a 15-year-old boy drowned in the Tidal Wave Pool.
A week later, on August 1, a 27-year-old man from Long Island got out of his tipped kayak on the Kayak Experience to right it. He was electrocuted when he stepped on a grate that was either in contact with, or came too close to, a section of wiring for the underwater fans that was exposed. Several other members of his family nearby were also injured. He was taken to a hospital in nearby Warwick, New York where he died later of heart failure from the electric shock.
The park at first disputed that the electric current caused his death, saying there were no burns on his body, but the coroner responded that burns generally do not occur in a water-based electrocution.
The ride was drained and closed for the investigation. Accounts differed as to the extent of the exposed wiring: the park said it was "just a nick," while others said it was more like 8 inches (20 cm). The state's Labor Department found that the fan was properly maintained and installed and cleared the park of wrongdoing; however it also said the current had the possibility to cause bodily harm under certain circumstances. While the park said it was vindicated, it never reopened the ride, saying people would be afraid to go on it afterwards.
In 1984, a fatal heart attack suffered by one visitor was unofficially believed to have been triggered by the shock of the cold water in the pool beneath the Tarzan Swing. The water on the Tarzan Swing and in that swimming area was 50-60 °F (10-16 °C) while other water areas were in the 70-80 °F (21-27 °C) range more typical of swimming pools. The Tarzan swing and the cannon ball ride in this area were operated by spring water.
On August 27 of that year, a 20-year-old from Brooklyn drowned in the Tidal Wave Pool.
On July 19, 1987, an 18-year-old drowned in the Tidal Wave Pool.
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