'Class Action Park': Deadly history of American theme park revealed

Snake-infested waters, an enclosed loop slide and a ferocious wave pool – this theme park in the US was responsible for the death of six people in the space of seven years.

The story of Action Park in Vernon, New Jersey – which most of us have probably never even heard of – is truly one of the wildest you'll come across.

A new HBO documentary Class Action Park details all sorts of indiscretions from the park's heyday including drunken underage staff manning the rides, botched ride designs and countless deaths and injuries, all while authorities took a blind eye and punters kept showing up.

Yes, this is a true story.

In 1978, Action Park opened to the public under the ownership of Great American Recreation.

It quickly became popular among locals and tourists for its crazy unique rides, and was considered one of the first modern water parks of its kind in the US.

But as fast as it gained popularity, it also earned notoriety for its truly disastrous injury toll as a result of its dangerous rides.

An emergency room director at a nearby hospital reported in 1987 they were treating anywhere from five to 10 victims daily during peak season. The park actually even bought extra ambulances to meet demand.

Some of the park's most infamous rides included the Super Speedboats, which were set up in a small pond and known by park staff to be heavily infested with snakes. And then there were the Bumper Boats which regularly had engines that leaked fuel.

Then in the mid-1980s the company built the infamous Cannonball Loop, with an enclosed round loop at the end, similar to that of a rollercoaster but in slide form.

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When the slide was first finished, organisers used dummies to test the ride and found that they kept emerging mutilated. Undeterred, staff were eventually asked to test the Cannonball Loop and were offered $100 bills as incentives.

One of the staff members, known as Fergus, described himself as "one of the idiots" who took the offer, saying: "$100 did not buy enough booze to drown out that memory".

Test riders would emerge with bloody mouths and unexplainable lacerations, until it was discovered that the teeth of previous riders had gotten stuck in the loop and were cutting people.

Despite the testing disaster, the slide was opened for one month in summer of 1985 before it was quickly closed at the order of the state's Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety.

Named in the documentary as another one of the park's more dangerous rides, the Roaring Rapids produced a long list of injuries.

In a 1984 filing to the state of New Jersey, the park noted a slew of injuries on this attraction including fractured femurs, collarbones, noses, as well as broken elbows, and dislocated shoulders and knees.

Another attraction was Cannonball Falls, which saw riders launched out of a slide and off a 3m drop before they hit the water. Employees admitted that people were constantly pulled out of the ice cold, deep mountain pool below because they were in shock or hadn't come out of the slide correctly.

Another attraction, the Wave Pool – also referred to as the Grave Pool – was 30m wide and 250m long, and could hold 500 to 1000 people.

Waves were generated for 20 minutes at a time with 10-minute intervals between them and could reach a metre in height.

The pool was said to be too strong and too deep and many revellers could not swim, but even those who could swim sometimes exhausted themselves, causing patrons to crowd the side ladders as the waves began, leading to several accidents.

Three people died in this pool.

Fatalities at Action Park

July 8, 1980:

Perhaps one of the ugliest and most upsetting of the incidents at Action Park, the death of George Larsson Jr after riding the Alpine Slide is one of Class Action Park's main focuses. The Alpine Slide, a 820m-long track made of concrete, fibreglass, and asbestos, saw riders sit on small sleds that had a brake/accelerator stick and descend the slope. One afternoon, while visiting the park with a friend, 19-year-old Larsson boarded the Alpine Slide. The brake on his sled was broken, which evidently caused his sled to run off the track. He fell into an embankment and hit his head on a rock, an injury that sent him into a coma and killed him. Park founder Gene Mulvihill told reporters that Larsson was an employee, that he was riding at night, and that it had been raining, a story that his family disputes. Mulvihill told this story because if Larsson was an employee, he wasn't required to report this death to the state. State records show that between 1984 and 1985 alone, there were 14 fractures and 26 head injuries incurred from the Alpine Slide.

July 24, 1982: A 15-year-old boy, George Lopez, drowned in the Tidal Wave Pool.

August 1, 1982: 27-year-old Jeffrey Nathan was electrocuted while on the Kayak Experience, an attraction that saw 20 kayaks travel along 300m of rapids. These rapids, as it turned out, were generated by underwater fans. Nathan reportedly flipped out of the kayak – a common occurrence for riders of this attraction – and while he was in the water trying to get back onto his kayak, one of these underwater fans short-circuited, electrocuting him. He went into cardiac arrest and died shortly after. This incident led to the permanent closure of The Kayak Experience, though the park would not take responsibility for the death, and claimed they only closed it because people would be too intimidated by it. 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 argued it was closer to 20cm. The state's Labour Department found that the fan was properly maintained and installed, and cleared the park of wrongdoing. However, it also said that the current had the possibility to cause bodily harm under certain circumstances. The park claimed it had been vindicated, although it never reopened the ride, saying that people would be afraid to go on it afterwards.

1984 (Date Unknown): 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 ride and in that swimming area was 10–16C, while other water areas were in the 21–27C range more typical of swimming pools. The Tarzan Swing and the Cannonball ride in this area were operated by spring water.

August 27, 1984: A 20-year-old from Brooklyn drowned in the Tidal Wave Pool.

July 19, 1987: An 18-year-old drowned in the Tidal Wave Pool.

Following a slew of personal injury lawsuits – which earned the park the nickname "Class Action Park" – Great American Recreation declared bankruptcy and the park was eventually closed in 1996.

As for how it managed to stay open for so long, park founder Gene Mulvihill (who died in 2012 at the age of 78) is alleged to have had ties to the Mafia, which played into how much power he had in the town of Vernon.

In early 1998, Intrawest announced the purchase of the Action Park property and after a substantial overhaul, which included revamping rides and removing attractions deemed unsafe, the water park was reopened as Mountain Creek Waterpark where it is still operational.