8Action ParkPhoto: Geoff Cooper
Action Park
Vernon, New Jersey
New Jersey’s Action Park boasted perhaps the worst reputation of any amusement park in history. The place was a perfect storm of unsafe rides, drunken patrons, and disinterested teenage employees. Countless injuries were suffered on the park’s water slides. At least six people were killed during the park’s history, including three drownings, an electrocution, and a heart attack allegedly caused by the shock of frigid water beneath a rope swing.
One man died when the car he was riding on leapt off the Alpine Slide, causing him to smash his head on a rock. By 1998, the crushing weight of lawsuits forced the owners to close down Action Park. A few years later, it was reopened in a sanitized version as Mountain Creek with a new emphasis on safety, the reckless and sinister history buried beneath signs and regulations.
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