The recent death of a 10-year-old boy at a Kansas water park has given many parents pause, leaving them wondering what safeguards are in place to prevent accidents at theme parks and traveling carnivals across the nation.
At the West Virginia State Fair, in full swing this weekend, it's Jeff Alberts' job to ensure the more than 50 rides on the fair's midway are safe.
"We inspect every ride every day," said Alberts, chief safety inspector for Gibsonton, Florida-based Reithoffer Shows, the company that provides amusement rides at the state fair.
"If a ride has four operators on it, all four of them inspect the whole ride every day. By 9:30 or 10 o'clock in the morning, everyone's out inspecting rides."
Alberts said it's improper to compare what happened at the Kansas water slide - the highest in the world - to the rides at the state fair in Fairlea. There are no water slides at the state fair.
"It was a totally different scenario because it was a water ride," Alberts said. "It's a one-of-a-kind thing in the world. Our rides are totally different."
Also this week, a boy tumbled from a roller coaster at Idlewild Park in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, and three children were hurt in Tennessee when they fell from a Ferris wheel.
The Galaxy roller coaster is the largest ride at this year's West Virginia fair. Seven Reithoffer employees check over the coaster every day.
"We're inspecting every wheel, every anti-rollback, nuts, bolts, grease fittings, pins, wedges on the track, lap belts, seat belts, everything in all the cars," Alberts said.
The West Virginia State Fair's amusement rides haven't been without incident. In 2011, a Reithoffer worker was critically injured while operating a ride called The Speed. The operator stepped into the path of the ride, and a gondola-type car struck him in the face. The incident sparked an investigation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Alberts was one of the first people on the scene of the accident five years ago.
"That had nothing to do with the ride," he said Friday. "That was operator error."
OSHA fined Reithoffer Shows $4,100 for the incident. During the past five years, the federal agency has cited the company with 10 violations in five states.
In 1988, the West Virginia Legislature passed laws that require amusement ride inspections. The Division of Labor oversees those inspections. Since 2005, the division has hired private inspectors to examine rides before the public uses them.
Alberts said Division of Labor employees and a private inspector spent five days going over every ride at the fairgrounds.
"There have been three of them out here every day," Alberts said. "And we've had our in-house team out with them fixing, adjusting things. Whatever they found, we fixed."
The 92nd West Virginia State Fair runs through Aug. 21.
Alberts has inspected rides at the West Virginia fairgrounds for 18 consecutive years. His next stop: the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque.
Reach Eric Eyre at
ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com,
304-348-4869 or follow
@ericeyre on Twitter.