Welcome to Action Park, Famous for "Poorly Designed, Unsafe Rides"

Action Park, the spectacularly unsafe New Jersey amusement park, was a nightmare. Everyone should know about it. In a beautiful twist of luck, it turns out that the Wikipedia entry for the the park is stunning, a bracing bit of reportage full of black comedy and broken dreams.

That said, it is full of words, lots of words and few pictures. To remedy this, here is an illustrated (though abridged) version of the highly-regarded Wiki entry, using vintage photos and screen grabs from classic commercials to tell the sad and strange tale. Welcome to Action Park.

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Action Park was an amusement park, open from 1978 to 1996 in Vernon Township, New Jersey at the former Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area, now known as Mountain Creek.

It featured three separate attraction areas: an alpine slide, Motorworld, and Waterworld. The latter-most was one of the first American waterparks. Many of Action Park's attractions were unique, attracting thrill-seekers from across the New York City metro area. The park's popularity went hand in hand with a reputation for poorly designed, unsafe rides; inattentive, underage employees; intoxicated, unprepared visitors; and the consequently poor safety record.

At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park. It was given nicknames such as "Traction Park" and "Accident Park," by doctors at nearby hospitals due to the number of severely injured park-goers they treated. Little action was taken by state regulators despite a history of repeat violations. In its later years personal-injury lawsuits forced the closure of more and more rides and finally the park itself in 1996.

Intrawest purchased the property and in 1998, many of the water attractions were reopened as Mountain Creek Waterpark. With a vastly increased emphasis on ride safety, the alpine slide and Motorworld areas were eliminated and some new water attractions were added. In 2010, the whole Mountain Creek ski area and waterpark was sold to a group led by Eugene Mulvihill, the former operator of Great Gorge and Action Park.

[via Wikipedia]

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The park was born in the mid-1970s when Great American Recreation (GAR), new owners of the recently combined Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area, wanted to do something with the ski area during the off season. They followed the trend of many other ski areas at the time, and in 1977 began offering an alpine slide down very steep ski trails, then gradually put together Waterworld, one of North America's earliest water parks, at the base of the slopes.

They started out with two speed waterslides in the summer of 1978, and then more waterslides and a small deep-water swimming pool the next year. The early 1980s saw more slides along with a huge wavepool. Finally, Motorworld was carved out of the swampy areas the ski area owned across Route 94. Ultimately, the small park consisting of the Alpine Slide and two speed slides evolved to a major destination with 75 rides (35 motorized self-controlled rides and 40 waterslides).

GAR promoted its new attraction with television commercials in the New York metropolitan area, using the jingle "There's nothing in the world like Action Park!" in several-part harmony (later, "The action never stops ... at Action Park!"). The park soon became a popular summertime weekend destination in and of itself, due to the level of control it offered visitors over their experience compared with most other amusement parks. Some visitors were not even aware that it was part of a ski area.

Action Park's most successful years were the mid-1980s. Most rides were still open, and the park's later reputation for danger had not yet developed. In 1982, the deaths of two visitors within a week of each other and ensuing permanent closure of one ride took place, but that hardly dampened the flow of crowds.

The park's fortunes began to turn with two deaths in summer 1984 and the legal and financial problems that stemmed from the lawsuits. A state investigation of improprieties in the leasing of state land to the resort led to a 110-count grand juryindictment against the nine related companies that ran the resort and their executives for operating an unauthorized insurance company. Many took pretrial intervention to avoid prosecution; head Eugene Mulvihill pled guilty that November to five insurance fraud-related charges. Still, attendance remained high and the park remained profitable at least on paper. The park entertained over a million visitors a year, with as many as 12,000 coming on some of the busiest weekends.

Park officials said this made the injury and death rate statistically insignificant. Nevertheless, the director of the emergency room at a nearby hospital said they treated from five to ten victims of park accidents on some of the busiest days, and the park eventually bought the township of Vernon extra ambulances to keep up with the volume.

A few rides were closed and dismantled due to costly settlements and rising insurance premiums in the 1990s, and at last the park's attendance began to suffer as the recession early in that decade reduced visitation. GAR was finally forced into bankruptcy in 1995, and Action Park operated with no insurance policy for its last several years in operation.

Action Park closed at the end of the season as usual on Labor Day, September 2, 1996. It was assumed that it would reopen on Memorial Day weekend of 1997 as usual. However, the financial state of GAR continued to cast a pall over the operations of both Action Park and the Great Gorge ski resort. Action Park's opening was first pushed back to mid-June 1997, and then 4th of July weekend. These never came to pass, as GAR announced in July that it was shutting down its operations immediately, including Action Park.

[via Wikipedia]

Action Park's alpine slide descended the mountain roughly below one of the ski area's chairlifts, resulting in much verbal harassment and sometimes spitting from passengers going up for their turn, who would often be entertained by the accidents they witnessed while at the same time hoping to avoid similar fates.

The tracks themselves were made of concrete and fiberglass, which led to numerous serious abrasions on riders who took even mild spills. The tendency of some to ride in bathing suits so they could go on to Waterworld attractions afterwards made this problem worse.

The sleds themselves were a large factor in the injuries. A stick that was supposed to control speed led, in practice, to just two options on the infrequently maintained vehicles: extremely slow, and a speed described by one former employee as "death awaits."

This slide led to the first fatality at the park, a head injury suffered in 1980 by an employee whose sled ran off the track; he then fell down a large embankment and hit his head on a rock, which killed him. Hay bales at the curves were meant to cushion the impact of those whose sleds jumped the track (a frequent occurrence), but did not always do so effectively. According to state records, in the years 1984 and 1985 the alpine slide produced 14 fractures and 26 head injuries. While park officials regularly asserted its safety, saying that 90-year-old grandmothers could and did ride it, in the early years of the park the slide was responsible for the bulk of the accidents, injuries, lawsuits and state citations for safety violations.

When Intrawest took over the park and renamed it Mountain Creek in spring 1998, they announced the slide would remain open for one final season. Riders were required to wear helmets and kneepads. The last day of the slide's operation was September 6 of that year, the day before the park closed for the season, as that year's Labor Day was rainy and the slide had to be closed.

The tracks were torn out afterwards, but the route can still be seen from the gondola that replaced the chairlift.

[via Wikipedia]

The park also had a section called Motorworld. It had powered vehicles and boats on the west side of Route 94. These closed with Action Park in 1996. They have been replaced with a condominium housing development, a mini golf course, a restaurant, and additional parking for the Mountain Creek ski resort. Several types of vehicles were used in this area.

[via Wikipedia]

[via Wikipedia]

The one ride that has come to symbolize Action Park and its extreme thrill-seeking was almost never used.

In the mid-1980s GAR built an enclosed water slide, not unusual for that time, and indeed the park already had several. But for this one they decided to build, at the end, a complete vertical loop of the kind more commonly associated with roller coasters. Employees have reported they were offered hundred-dollar bills to test it. Tom Fergus, "one of the idiots," said "$100 did not buy enough booze to drown out that memory."

It was opened for one month in summer 1985 before it was closed at the order of the state's Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety, a highly unusual move at the time. One worker told a local newspaper that "there were too many bloody noses and back injuries" from riders, and it was widely rumored, and reported in Weird NJ, that some of the test dummies sent down before it was opened had been dismembered. A rider also reportedly got stuck at the top of the loop due to insufficient water pressure, and a hatch had to be built at the bottom of the slope to allow for future extractions.

The ride supposedly reopened a few more times over the years. In summer 1995 it opened for several days before a few more injuries forced another shutdown.

Those who did ride it have said that more safety measures were taken than was otherwise common at the park. Riders were weighed and hosed down with cold water, required to remove jewelry, and then carefully instructed in how they had to position their bodies to complete the ride.

For the remainder of the park's existence, it remained visible near the entrance of Waterworld. The slide was dismantled shortly after Action Park closed and has never been rebuilt.

[via Wikipedia]

The first patron death occurred here in 1982; another visitor would drown in this common water-park attraction five years later. It was, however, the number of people the lifeguards saved from a similar fate that made this the only Waterworld attraction to gain its own nickname, "The Grave Pool." It was 100 feet (30 m) wide by 250 feet (76 m) long and could hold 500 to 1,000 people. Waves were generated for 20 minutes at a time with 10-minute intervals between them, and could reach as much as 40 inches (102 cm) in height. It was not always obvious that pool depth increased as one got closer to the far end, and there were patrons who only remembered or realized that they could not swim when they were in over their heads and the waves were going full blast. Even those who could swim well did not realize that the waves, asfresh water, were not as buoyant as their ocean counterparts, and they sometimes exhausted themselves doing more swimming than they were ready for, causing patrons to crowd the side ladders as the waves began, leading to many accidents. Twelve lifeguards were on duty at all times, and on high-traffic weekends they were known to rescue as many as 30 people, compared to the one or two the average lifeguard might make in a typical season at a pool or lake. Mountain Creek continues to operate this attraction as the "High Tide Wavepool" but made the pool much shallower.

[via Wikipedia]

This was a steel arch hanging from a 20-foot (6.1 m)-long cable over a spring-fed pool. Patrons waited in long lines for the chance to hang from it, swing out over the water, then jump off as the beam reached its height. In early years the area you jumped off from was not over the water but a cushioned area. Some people who let go as soon as they started their swing would land on the cushion and then slide/crash into the water. In the mid 1980s the starting position was shifted so that you started over the water. Some patrons hung on too long and scraped their toes on the concrete at the far side. Others used the ride properly, but then were surprised to find out the water underneath was very cold. It was cold enough, in fact, that the lifeguards sometimes had to rescue people who were so surprised by the sudden chill they could not swim out. In 1984, one man died from a heart attack after experiencing the swing. This ride is still open today.

[via Wikipedia]

These were two water slides, set slightly apart from the rest of the park, that took advantage of nearly vertical slopes to allow riders to attain higher speeds than usually possible. One started with riders going almost vertically downwards and was covered with screening for the first several feet. As barriers on the side of the slides were very low, lifeguards reminded every user to remain flat on their back with their arms at the side as they descended since there was no way to ride it otherwise and stay on. The fall from both slides had the potential for very serious injury. Those who made it to the bottom found their progress arrested by water, which made a large splash, and then a small pool. The speed at which riders met the end resulted in many getting wedgies and enemas from the experience. Only one of these slides remains today as H-2-Oh-No.

[via Wikipedia]

The area around Roaring Rapids was (and still is) laid out like a kind of grotto, with many lower-intensity attractions. One was a pair of diving cliffs—one 23 feet (7 m), the other 18 feet (5.4 m)—above a 16-foot (5 m) deep pool. However, the pool below was not blocked off from those who might be swimming in or away from other attractions, and nothing at water level gave any indication to swimmers below that they could expect people to dive in right next to them - or right on top of them. The sole lifeguard on duty often had his or her hands full dealing with the results of those collisions. Also, non-swimmers would jump off the cliffs, not fully appreciating how deep the water below was, and have to be rescued. Former employee Tom Fergus says the bottom of the pool was eventually painted white to make it easier to spot any bodies on the bottom. The large pool into which people jumped is no longer used for regular swimming, only to deposit used tubes. Still operating, known as Canyon Cliffs.

[via Wikipedia]

This was a standard raft-based whitewater ride. Reports that the park filed with the state in 1984 noted fractured femurs, collar bones and noses, and dislocated knees and shoulders. This attraction is still open. The left side is known as The Gauley and riders use a single tube. The right side is known as Thunder Run and is a double tube rafting ride.

[via Wikipedia]

This ride, common to other water parks at the time, allowed patrons to slide down a water-slick sloped surface on mats into small puddles, until they reached a foam barrier after an upslope at the end. Barriers between lanes were minimal, and people frequently collided with each other on the way down, or at the end. The seventh lane was known as the "back breaker," due to its special kicker two-thirds of the way down intended to allow jumps and splashdowns into a larger puddle. Employees at the park used to like eating at a nearby snack bar with a good view of the attraction, since it was almost guaranteed that they could see some serious injuries, lost bikini tops, or both. Mountain Creek kept this attraction open through 2005. Earlier this year, it was announced that the ride is to re-open in June. On the Mountain Creek webpage, a photo is up under the "Park Central" part. It has been confirmed on Mountain Creek's Facebook page that the ride is open where the original Surf Hill was located.

[via Wikipedia]

Six people are known to have died directly or indirectly from rides at Action Park:

[via Wikipedia]

Action Park was a cultural touchstone for many Generation Xers who grew up in North and Central Jersey, as well as nearby locales in New York and Connecticut. A popular list of "You Know You're from New Jersey When ..." that circulates in email begins with, "You've been seriously injured at Action Park."

Some even credit the park for making them learn some difficult lessons. In 2000, one, Matthew Callan, recalled Action Park thus:

Chris Gethard, a writer for Weird NJ and the associated book series, concurs:

On August 1, 1993, MTV's Headbanger's Ball taped an episode at the park. The host, Riki Rachtman, interviewed and went on the rides with the band Alice In Chains.

[via Wikipedia]