Disney Declassified: Tales of Real Life Disney Scandals, Sex, Accidents and Deaths by Aaron Goldberg Page B
Authors: Aaron Goldberg
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95% mortality rate. Tragically, this is exactly what happened to an eleven-year-old boy from New York who was swimming at Walt Disney World’s River Country in 1980.
Not familiar with River Country, eh? Well, let's go back in time to June of 1976, the month the water park opened. Along the shores of Bay Lake (the lake next to the Seven Seas Lagoon), was a six-acre themed water park, Walt Disney World’s first. The park was situated adjacent to the Ft. Wilderness Campgrounds and had a rustic theme featuring an Ol’ Swimmin’ Hole, rapids, raft rides, rope swings, beaches and water slides. River Country featured both a pool (chlorinated) and cove that was part of Bay Lake—although separated by a barrier. Disney utilized the water from the lake for the slides and attractions. It was filtered and monitored for quality, but that couldn’t stop the amoeba incident from happening. Sadly, the last week of August 1980, the eleven-year-old boy passed away from Naegleria fowleri from his exposure at River Country during the first week of August. Brain-eating amoeba aside, calamity struck River Country two more times in the 1980s with the drowning of two teenage boys. Despite these deaths, River Country continued to entertain guests until the park closed in November 2001; however, swimming was banned at the lakes around Disney property in the 1990s.
The mecca of family entertainment for millions of people around the world is just beyond the Seven Seas Lagoon, and we are about to enter it and view it in a different light—if your views haven’t been altered already. As we all have experienced at one time or another, accidents do happen at home. The east coast version of Mickey’s house is no different.
The land that encompasses Walt Disney World is roughly forty square miles. They have their own infrastructure like every other city in this country and in many ways more elaborate and technical. WDW has a nightly evening population of well over 100,000 people and a daytime population hovering around 300,000 people, roughly the population of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
To attempt to compare the accident frequency at Walt Disney World with Disneyland, or quite frankly any other amusement park, would be unjust and futile. Plain and simple, Walt Disney World is enormous; from the many theme parks to the over twenty-five on-site hotels and resorts. Feeding the masses to providing them with accommodations and comforts of home isn’t easy and accidents happen everywhere and in every imaginable situation.
There have been situations where over sixty people were made sick by salmonella poisoning from unpasteurized orange juice Disney served at their resorts in 1995 to Disney heeding warnings from state epidemiologists about an outbreak of mosquitoes carrying St. Louis encephalitis that forced Disney to close resort pools and limit evening activities in an effort to limit guests' exposure to the buggers in August of 1997. There was even a woman in 2010 doing laundry at the Pop Century Resort who had her coins jam in the change machine, and in an effort to dislodge the coins, the machine fell on top of her and broke her leg.
Walt Disney World has seen it all: from mechanical failure, suicide, a hostage situation, and random violence (Chapter Three details some of the latter). All of these situations are atrocious and painful both emotionally and mentally for those involved. With that being said, accidents are aplenty, but the focus of most of these are ones where Disney usually learns from these incidents and implements some sort of change, be it for ride safety or procedures for their cast members.
On August 11, 1977, four-year-old Joel from Dolton, Illinois, wandered away from his mother at the ice cream shop on Main Street after 11:00 P . M . Once his mother, Marietta, realized he was gone, panic ensued and a search commenced to find the little boy. A child separated from their parents is a daily occurrence at the theme
Not familiar with River Country, eh? Well, let's go back in time to June of 1976, the month the water park opened. Along the shores of Bay Lake (the lake next to the Seven Seas Lagoon), was a six-acre themed water park, Walt Disney World’s first. The park was situated adjacent to the Ft. Wilderness Campgrounds and had a rustic theme featuring an Ol’ Swimmin’ Hole, rapids, raft rides, rope swings, beaches and water slides. River Country featured both a pool (chlorinated) and cove that was part of Bay Lake—although separated by a barrier. Disney utilized the water from the lake for the slides and attractions. It was filtered and monitored for quality, but that couldn’t stop the amoeba incident from happening. Sadly, the last week of August 1980, the eleven-year-old boy passed away from Naegleria fowleri from his exposure at River Country during the first week of August. Brain-eating amoeba aside, calamity struck River Country two more times in the 1980s with the drowning of two teenage boys. Despite these deaths, River Country continued to entertain guests until the park closed in November 2001; however, swimming was banned at the lakes around Disney property in the 1990s.
The mecca of family entertainment for millions of people around the world is just beyond the Seven Seas Lagoon, and we are about to enter it and view it in a different light—if your views haven’t been altered already. As we all have experienced at one time or another, accidents do happen at home. The east coast version of Mickey’s house is no different.
The land that encompasses Walt Disney World is roughly forty square miles. They have their own infrastructure like every other city in this country and in many ways more elaborate and technical. WDW has a nightly evening population of well over 100,000 people and a daytime population hovering around 300,000 people, roughly the population of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
To attempt to compare the accident frequency at Walt Disney World with Disneyland, or quite frankly any other amusement park, would be unjust and futile. Plain and simple, Walt Disney World is enormous; from the many theme parks to the over twenty-five on-site hotels and resorts. Feeding the masses to providing them with accommodations and comforts of home isn’t easy and accidents happen everywhere and in every imaginable situation.
There have been situations where over sixty people were made sick by salmonella poisoning from unpasteurized orange juice Disney served at their resorts in 1995 to Disney heeding warnings from state epidemiologists about an outbreak of mosquitoes carrying St. Louis encephalitis that forced Disney to close resort pools and limit evening activities in an effort to limit guests' exposure to the buggers in August of 1997. There was even a woman in 2010 doing laundry at the Pop Century Resort who had her coins jam in the change machine, and in an effort to dislodge the coins, the machine fell on top of her and broke her leg.
Walt Disney World has seen it all: from mechanical failure, suicide, a hostage situation, and random violence (Chapter Three details some of the latter). All of these situations are atrocious and painful both emotionally and mentally for those involved. With that being said, accidents are aplenty, but the focus of most of these are ones where Disney usually learns from these incidents and implements some sort of change, be it for ride safety or procedures for their cast members.
On August 11, 1977, four-year-old Joel from Dolton, Illinois, wandered away from his mother at the ice cream shop on Main Street after 11:00 P . M . Once his mother, Marietta, realized he was gone, panic ensued and a search commenced to find the little boy. A child separated from their parents is a daily occurrence at the theme
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