- Aug 24, 2001
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update 2
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Update
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yikes
:shocked:
The maiden voyage of Batman The Ride after Saturday's death of a South Carolina teenager brought thrills to riders and as well as thoughts of the tragedy.
"It wasn't Six Flags' fault," said Isaac Abernathy, 20, of Adairsville.
He was among the first riders.
"It was the fault of him being there," he said.
He thought about Asia L. Ferguson, the teen who died after scaling two fences in a restricted area with his cousin.
Ferguson was decapitated when he was hit by the ride.
But mostly, Abernathy enjoyed the ride.
"It's fast and curvy," he said.
"I love Batman as a child, and it's a fun ride to be on."
Deidre Dollfuss, Abernathy's girlfriend, enjoyed the ride with only a moment's thought of Ferguson's death.
"It was his fault. He shouldn't have been there," Dollfuss said.
Out-of-state visitors had no apprehension about getting on the ride.
"I wasn't really worried," said Katie St. Germaine, 14, of Michigan.
Her friend agreed.
"It was fun," said Rebecca Wilson, 13, also of Michigan.
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Update
The cellphone call came just as Asia D. Ferguson and his wife, Letha, finished lunch Saturday afternoon at a picnic area beside the east parking lot at Six Flags Over Georgia, which they were visiting with a church group.
Letha Ferguson answered.
On the other end was David Jenkins, a cousin, with the news the couple's 17-year-old son, Asia LeeShawn Ferguson, had been in an accident. A horrific accident.
"Shawn," as family and friends called him, had been decapitated by the Batman the Ride roller coaster at the Austell park.
The speeding roller coaster struck the Columbia, S.C., teen as it sped through a restricted area that he and another teen entered by scaling two 6-foot fences, ignoring warning signs, police said.
On Sunday, Shawn Ferguson's relatives struggled to comprehend their loss as authorities continued their investigation and Six Flags officials prepared to reopen the 11-year-old ride Monday. It was shut down after the Saturday afternoon accident, though the park remained open.
"We're awaiting the results of the investigation. We're going to have someone investigate, too," his father said. "We're not blaming the park."
The elder Ferguson had a hard time finding the words during a cellphone conversation Sunday as he and his wife rode home with other Sunday School members from Oakley Spring Baptist, a church of about 200 members in Springfield, S.C. The 67 young people and adults had come to Atlanta on Friday to sightsee and hang out at Six Flags.
"It's really hard for me to talk right now," said Ferguson, also father to Shawn's brother, Jacolby. "I'm really upset. I lost my oldest son."
Leaving Shawn's body behind for an autopsy on Monday compounded their heartache.
"It's real tough," Ferguson said. "My wife is still crying."
Jenkins, Ferguson said, hasn't been in a mood to talk about what happened to his cousin and what led the younger Ferguson to take an apparent shortcut.
Ferguson himself is at a loss to explain it.
"You don't know what's in a teenager's mind," he said. "Teenage boys do what teenage boys do. Sometimes they make some good decisions. Sometimes they make some bad decisions."
He said his son ? the fourth in line of Ferguson men named Asia ? was never in trouble.
Shawn Ferguson was an average student and a rising senior at Columbia's W.J. Keenan High School.
Ferguson said his son loved PlayStation 3, working out with weights and playing basketball. He also was avid churchgoer, played the drums, sang tenor in the choir at Oakley Spring Baptist and had a love for both gospel and secular music, including rap.
"He didn't do anything wrong," Ferguson said. "He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Police said the teens had been inside the park earlier and were trying to re-enter without going to the front entrance. They did not identify the other youth.
They first scaled a decorative black iron fence that circles the entire park, then a chain-link one that encircles the ride. The fences are each about 6 feet tall.
The fences are posted with signs warning of a danger zone and a "restricted area" accessible only to authorized park employees, Six Flags said in a written statement.
The Batman the Ride roller coaster travels up to 50 mph as it takes riders ski-lift style upside down and on vertical loops, corkscrews and 11-story climbs.
Neither Ferguson's companion nor any passengers were hurt when the ride struck Ferguson.
His death is the second reported in connection with the ride since 2002, when a maintenance worker was hit in the head by a rider's foot as it passed overhead. The ride opened in 1997.
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A 17-year-old South Carolina boy on an church outing was killed Saturday when he was struck by the popular "Batman the Ride" at Six Flags Over Georgia. It was the second Batman ride-related death at the Cobb County park.
According to the police and a statement from the amusement park, the boy and a friend climbed over two 6-foot fences -- the park perimeter fence and a second one surrounding the ride -- to get to the roller coaster. Park officials said there were numerous signs warning would-be intruders of the danger.
The victim was decapitated when the ride struck him, police said. The youth was not identified.
"The areas where the individuals entered were clearly marked with signs marked 'restricted area. Authorized personnel only,' and a sign on a locked gate that read 'Danger zone. Do not enter. Authorized personnel only," park spokeswoman Hela Sheth said to reporters, reading from a prepared statement.
"It is still unclear why the two men were trying to gain access to this unauthorized area," Sheth said. She declined to answer questions at an evening news conference and did not return several telephone messages seeking additional information.
The boy was with a group from Oakley Spring Baptist Church in Salley, S.C. He had been in Six Flags earlier in the day, but he and another boy left the park property to get some lunch, according to Cobb County police spokesman Sgt. Dana Pierce.
Rather than returning to the park through the regular entrance, the two boys took a shortcut, Pierce said.
"The area's clearly defined with signs," Pierce said. "It's very tragic that these individuals would decide to jump over the fence. It would be hard to imagine somebody not seeing the signs and jumping two fences."
No one on the ride was injured, Six Flags said in the statement. The boy's family was at the park at the time of the accident, according to the amusement park.
Pierce said there were many witnesses, and the county's 911 center was almost immediately flooded with calls from people reporting what they had seen.
The park's statement said one of the first to call for help was an Marietta police officer who had been in line for the Batman ride.
"Six Flags security and safety personnel responded immediately, and Cobb County Fire [Department] was on site just minutes after the incident occurred," Sheth said. "The medical examiner arrived on scene and confirmed that the 17-year-old male was killed instantaneously."
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the family," she said.
The Batman ride was run briefly after the accident so police investigators could take measurements. It was closed to the public Saturday evening. The rest of Six Flags remained open. The park said the ride likely would resume operating on Monday.
Batman riders dangle beneath a track and travel up to 50 m.p.h., climbing and dropping the distance equal to an 11-story building and going through two vertical loops and two single corkscrews.
The first fatality involving the Batman ride in Georgia occurred six years ago.
A 58-year-old park worker, Samuel Milton Guyton of Atlanta, was killed May 26, 2002. Guyton was in a restricted area on a platform when he was kicked in the head by 14-year-old girl on the front car of the ride. The girl was hospitalized with a leg injury.
Over the years, several ride-related deaths have been reported at Six Flags parks nationwide.
Last March, a worker dismantling a ride at Six Flags Great America near Chicago fell 40-feet to his death. In 2004 at the same park, a maintenance worker was hit by a roller coaster and killed.
A 55-year-old disabled man was killed in May 2004 when he was thrown from a ride at Six Flags New England near Springfield, Mass. Five years ago, a grandmother strapping her 4-year-old grandson into Six Flags New Orleans' Joker's Jukebox ride was hit by a spinning car when the ride began operating before she was out of the way.
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