Most of my Park days were spent working in Water World. Someone paid me to stand around in a bathing suit and get a tan. It's what I would have done all summer anyway so why not collect a pay check? Of course, I took my life guard class and test, and I passed (Thank God my brother DJ was one of the instructors) but I worked as a "ride attendant". I spent my days watching people ride the tube ride and, one year, sliding down Surf Hill. I also gave a lot of "Hello good morning and welcome to the Park..." speeches. Water World was a cush job regardless of which ride you worked.
Every summer we had Water World Wars. All of the employees in water world came to the park one hour before it opened, broke into 2 teams divided by the rides we worked on and competed in the most absurd events you can imagine. We essentially rode every single ride in water world in a way the ride was not intended to be used and in ways that we would have kicked people out of the park for. Of course I don't actually recall there being a prize for the winning team. Maybe there was, but more likely not.
So in my first year as a ride attendant I competed in Water World Wars. In the midst of a tough race we came to the 21-man chain. Here every member of the team sat behind one another on the Green Water Slides, grabbed the person in front of them by the shoulders and the entire team raced down the water slide. There were 2 slides so it was a race to the bottom. The first team down and out of the pool at the bottom won. In true Jersey style, I had absurdly long nails (not elegantly long and manicured--long like talons). As my team got to the bottom of the slide and hit the small pool, the impact made me jump a little and I grabbed the shoulders of the guy in front of me harder. My nails dug into him and he jumped. His shoulder hit my nose and it broke-I immediately passed out. As everyone in my team ran out of the pool to win the race, I lay face down, passed out, with a broken and bleeding nose--someone actually had to come in and get me out. My team lost the race.
Truly a shining moment--I had 2 black eyes for weeks--my nose has never recovered.
Showing posts with label injuries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label injuries. Show all posts
Friday, April 13, 2007
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Being for the Benefit of the Nondescript Family-of-Four
The stories of how the deregulation of King Gene's empire influenced the safety and well-being of patrons and employees alike could easily fill volumes of virtual space. I too suffered burns on the job at the hands of mismanagement, as a minor, but was fortunate enough to be sent to First Aid (but had to find my own ride home- with my parents out-of-town and no such policy on parental notification). The first aid attendant bandaged my second-degree burns, and, with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, advised me that, "if it gets worse, you should probably see a doctor."
Little did I know that this first experience with the Park's esteemed emergency services would lead me to a lifelong career in the healthcare field.
But first, I had to pay my dues.
I was hired to work the Park's First Aid Department fresh out of EMT school and couldn't wait to spend my summers riding around in those golf carts that, as a lowly F&B grommet, I always saw the EMTs driving while I slaved away behind the grease-fire grills. Uniforms emblazoned "EMT;" tending to the Aqua Skoot wounded; copping a peek at the misfortunes of teenage girls that searched franticly in the Surf Hill lanes for their bikini tops? This was definately the job for me.
But as it turned out, every day was a mass casualty incident.
As had been reported in Weird NJ, patron-controlled attractions and unabated alcohol consumption proved to be strange bedfellows- sometimes resulting in the utter hilarity of human stupidity, other times in the tragedy of collateral damage for some nondescript family-of-four that had to find their way to the local podunk Emergency Department because their kid was run over by a drunken alpine slider. Hundreds of people were maimed here, every week. I learned more in three summers at the Park then in four year of nursing school.
Downgrading of severity of injuries by First Aid management was commonplace to keep their statistics under the radar of the Department of Health. One day you would resuscitate someone (a code "red [really bad]" and come in the next day to find out it was downgraded to a code "green [bumps and bruises- but hey, you'll be OK]") Some days you treated so many people so quickly it was hard to even get their names. Other days you had time to play games with the patrons.
Our favorite was called "the Box." Patrons would come in to FA with abrasions (sometimes head-to-toe) from the Alpine Slide. Picture rugburn at 40 mph. In the infinite wisdom of our vocationally trained management, the best treatment for this injury was a spray called tincture of thimerisol (a combination of iodine and mercury, but hey, what don't kill ya [right away] only makes ya stronga). This stuff burned like the goddamn bejayzus, or so I was told by everyone who received it. It burned so bad, people ran around FA, sometimes screaming, often running out the doors into the GS lot.
Did I mention that First Aid was right next to the dumpsters and grease traps?
So we invented this game. We painted a 2 foot by 2 foot box on the floor in First Aid, and told patrons that if they could stand and remain in it while we hosed them down with this pink shit, they would win a prize. Most of these patrons, being drunk and male, were up for the sport. In three summers, after treating literally thousands of people with "Alpine Abrasions," only once did someone actually stay in the box. Imagine our shock and subsequent concern when we realized that we had never actually come up with a contingency plan to award a prize for this feat. The best we could produce on-the-spot was a Park pen. Boy, was he pissed.
But in the end, I will always look back with fond memories on my days at the Park. To this day I still have a close bond with colleagues from FA that can only be described as similar to that of people that have lived through some of the most shocking and horrible human tragedies. We fended off wild Latino mobs after they were disgraced by a pummeling from the resident jouster. Punched in the face by a Biggie-sized black woman as I tried to stabilize her boyfriend's dislocated shoulder. Patting down someone's scalp after an unfortunate "meeting" with the bottom roller of the Aqua Skoot.
But to put all the joking and sarcasm aside, it was always sad to see some family whose $200 day was ruined in part because the Park's management did not put the time or effort into providing a safe, quality environment for people to enjoy themselves. Whether I was an instrument of the Park's machine, or provided some semblance of compassion and reason (I hope the latter), we were all perishable resources that the Park consumed with a voracity that has only been matched by the New King of Hardyston's penchant for building golf courses and townhouses.
//Tom
Little did I know that this first experience with the Park's esteemed emergency services would lead me to a lifelong career in the healthcare field.
But first, I had to pay my dues.
I was hired to work the Park's First Aid Department fresh out of EMT school and couldn't wait to spend my summers riding around in those golf carts that, as a lowly F&B grommet, I always saw the EMTs driving while I slaved away behind the grease-fire grills. Uniforms emblazoned "EMT;" tending to the Aqua Skoot wounded; copping a peek at the misfortunes of teenage girls that searched franticly in the Surf Hill lanes for their bikini tops? This was definately the job for me.
But as it turned out, every day was a mass casualty incident.
As had been reported in Weird NJ, patron-controlled attractions and unabated alcohol consumption proved to be strange bedfellows- sometimes resulting in the utter hilarity of human stupidity, other times in the tragedy of collateral damage for some nondescript family-of-four that had to find their way to the local podunk Emergency Department because their kid was run over by a drunken alpine slider. Hundreds of people were maimed here, every week. I learned more in three summers at the Park then in four year of nursing school.
Downgrading of severity of injuries by First Aid management was commonplace to keep their statistics under the radar of the Department of Health. One day you would resuscitate someone (a code "red [really bad]" and come in the next day to find out it was downgraded to a code "green [bumps and bruises- but hey, you'll be OK]") Some days you treated so many people so quickly it was hard to even get their names. Other days you had time to play games with the patrons.
Our favorite was called "the Box." Patrons would come in to FA with abrasions (sometimes head-to-toe) from the Alpine Slide. Picture rugburn at 40 mph. In the infinite wisdom of our vocationally trained management, the best treatment for this injury was a spray called tincture of thimerisol (a combination of iodine and mercury, but hey, what don't kill ya [right away] only makes ya stronga). This stuff burned like the goddamn bejayzus, or so I was told by everyone who received it. It burned so bad, people ran around FA, sometimes screaming, often running out the doors into the GS lot.
Did I mention that First Aid was right next to the dumpsters and grease traps?
So we invented this game. We painted a 2 foot by 2 foot box on the floor in First Aid, and told patrons that if they could stand and remain in it while we hosed them down with this pink shit, they would win a prize. Most of these patrons, being drunk and male, were up for the sport. In three summers, after treating literally thousands of people with "Alpine Abrasions," only once did someone actually stay in the box. Imagine our shock and subsequent concern when we realized that we had never actually come up with a contingency plan to award a prize for this feat. The best we could produce on-the-spot was a Park pen. Boy, was he pissed.
But in the end, I will always look back with fond memories on my days at the Park. To this day I still have a close bond with colleagues from FA that can only be described as similar to that of people that have lived through some of the most shocking and horrible human tragedies. We fended off wild Latino mobs after they were disgraced by a pummeling from the resident jouster. Punched in the face by a Biggie-sized black woman as I tried to stabilize her boyfriend's dislocated shoulder. Patting down someone's scalp after an unfortunate "meeting" with the bottom roller of the Aqua Skoot.
But to put all the joking and sarcasm aside, it was always sad to see some family whose $200 day was ruined in part because the Park's management did not put the time or effort into providing a safe, quality environment for people to enjoy themselves. Whether I was an instrument of the Park's machine, or provided some semblance of compassion and reason (I hope the latter), we were all perishable resources that the Park consumed with a voracity that has only been matched by the New King of Hardyston's penchant for building golf courses and townhouses.
//Tom
Monday, November 13, 2006
The Importance of Protective Covering
Like Melissa, my first job at the Park was in the Food & Beverage Department. It was one of the only departments that would hire a 14-year-old.* And believe me when I tell you, you don't want your lunch made by a bunch of bored 14-year-olds. And you REALLY don't want to eat anything that came out of the deep fryer. When it got slow, we would amuse ourselves by throwing things into the oil to see what would happen. It was like science class but, you know, stupid. Plastic cups? They became frisbees! Whee! Loose change? Boy, it sure is fun to throw hot quarters onto the floor for unsuspecting Park patrons to pick up!
On rainy days, most of us would be sent home. But sometimes, management would keep some of us around for projects that couldn't really be completed during normal operating hours. One such day, my friend Emily, a senior(!) named Chris and I were dispatched to Papa's Pizza with some rubber gloves, a bottle of mysterious pink stuff and instructions to clean the ovens. Simple enough. But that pink stuff was probably supposed to be diluted, or something. Despite the rubber gloves, we all ended up with chemical burns on our forearms. Management's response? Wash it off. Then take the rest of the afternoon off. (No hospital, no incident report, I don't remember even going to First Aid.) So Chris drove us to the Dairy Queen and then we spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the Festival Tent, drinking wine coolers we stole from the stock room. Woo!
*The others being Parking and General Services. Neither of which was an appealing option for me. Stand in the parking lot all day? Bor-ing. Pick up garbage and clean public bathrooms? Grody.
On rainy days, most of us would be sent home. But sometimes, management would keep some of us around for projects that couldn't really be completed during normal operating hours. One such day, my friend Emily, a senior(!) named Chris and I were dispatched to Papa's Pizza with some rubber gloves, a bottle of mysterious pink stuff and instructions to clean the ovens. Simple enough. But that pink stuff was probably supposed to be diluted, or something. Despite the rubber gloves, we all ended up with chemical burns on our forearms. Management's response? Wash it off. Then take the rest of the afternoon off. (No hospital, no incident report, I don't remember even going to First Aid.) So Chris drove us to the Dairy Queen and then we spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the Festival Tent, drinking wine coolers we stole from the stock room. Woo!
*The others being Parking and General Services. Neither of which was an appealing option for me. Stand in the parking lot all day? Bor-ing. Pick up garbage and clean public bathrooms? Grody.
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