Family-Owned Park Mourns Tragic Accidents

The owners of Adventureland in Farmingdale are mourning the tragic loss of a patron and an employee last week, but visitors still showed up over Labor Day weekend to support the popular amusement park.
The family-owned and operated park estimated that attendance was almost back to its normal level this weekend despite the unrelated accidents that claimed the lives of a Long Island man and a mentally-challenged Queens woman on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
The park’s owner, Tony Gentile, spoke to The Queens Courier about how he and his family feel after the park, which had never had a fatal accident before in its 43 years, suffered the tragedies.
“We are all beside ourselves,” Gentile said. “We’ve had a phenomenal safety record in all our years and we take such pride in that. We’ve had scraped knees and chipped teeth before, but nothing ever like this. We’re all just in shock.”
The first accident occurred at the end of the day Wednesday, when a worker on the roller coaster ended up on the tracks and a car went over him, according to Gentile, who added he was not sure what the worker was doing on the tracks. An investigation is pending.
Then on Thursday, Barbara Brady, 45, of the Central Manor Home for Adults in Far Rockaway, was killed on the Top Scan ride, which whirls people in the air at high speeds. Investigations are still ongoing, but the park said the ride appeared to be in perfect working order with Brady’s restraints properly administered. Further inspection will be done to determine where the problem arose.
Gentile said the family travels all around the world trying out and inspecting new rides themselves, and that Top Scan was no different. Gentile said it came from a company in Germany, and it previously had a pristine record in parks across the globe.
In addition, Gentile said they’ve had the ride for five or six years now, and it has been ridden by more than 100,000 visitors. The Top Scan at the 11-acre Adventureland is shut until further notice.
“Our head engineer just can’t believe it,” Gentile said. “All of our stuff is state-of-the-art. It’s just such a tragedy.”