Colorado fines Glenwood Caverns park in girl’s death
The state agency that licenses amusement park rides on Wednesday slapped $68,000 in fines against the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, where a 6-year-old Colorado Springs girl was killed over Labor Day weekend.
Additionally, the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety’s amusement rides and devices program ordered the Haunted Mine Drop ride where Wongel Estifanos died to remain padlocked until it is re-inspected and employees have been properly trained to operate it, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Gazette.
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The fines are the largest assessed by the agency for at least a decade and follow an extensive investigation into Estifanos’ death on Sept. 5. She died after plummeting more than 100 feet in the makeshift mine shaft because she wasn’t properly belted into her seat. Garfield County prosecutors have said they are reviewing possible criminal charges in connection with the death.
Investigators determined two different employees — a wrongful death lawsuit filed Wednesday by the family identifies them as Toby Williams and Steve Ochoa — failed to notice the girl was sitting on the two safety belts when they overrode a security system warning of a problem and sent the ride on its fatal plunge.
The fines include a pair of $1,000 assessments against the park’s ownership, Glenwood Caverns Holdings LLC, for each employee’s failure to ensure Estifanos was buckled in.
The other $66,000 — a $1,000 fine for each day of a 66-day period — is for the park’s failure to properly train all operators of the Haunted Mine Drop, including in its safety and warning systems.
“Findings indicate that training for all ride operators of the [Haunted Mine Drop] did not appear to emphasize the inherent risks of the ride, nor did it include reviewing the manufacturer’s operating manual,” according to the violation notice.
By law, the park has 30 days to either pay the fines and comply with the enforcement order or go through a formal enforcement proceeding. If the required fixes are not made, the state can issue additional fines or shut down the park.
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A spokesperson for the amusement park did not immediately respond to The Gazette’s efforts seeking comment.
The girl’s parents, Estifanos Dagne and Rahel Estifanos, filed their lawsuit in Denver District Court, claiming the adventure park employees were reckless in not seeing that Wongel was sitting on her lap belts. The girl had taken the tail of the belt and held it over her lap. It had remained fastened from the previous ride because the seat was unoccupied, according to the state’s investigation report.
Rather than physically check each belt, one of the operators reset the ride — turning off a warning system that noted there was a problem — and sent the platform on which Wongel and five of her relatives sat on its way down the 110-foot shaft.
It wasn’t until the platform reached the bottom that Wongel’s uncle went to ask if she enjoyed the ride and saw she was gone. Seeing her crumpled body on the ground before them, the family struggled to reach her, but the platform automatically whisked them up the shaft, according to the lawsuit.
Colorado Springs girl killed on mine drop ride was not strapped in, report says
The park has had at least two complaints — neither of which were shared with state regulators at the time — about employees failing to notice riders of the Haunted Mine Drop were not buckled in. One of those complaints, from 2019, was turned over to investigators but the other, from 2018, was not, officials said.
Investigators say they learned of the earlier incident, in which a woman pleaded with ride operators not to send the platform into its plunge because a teenager was unbelted, after an attorney for the family shared the information from someone who had come forward.
State regulators said they were told the park did not have a method of recording or keeping complaints from customers. The park also told them that the 2019 emailed complaint went unnoticed because of a system problem, according to the state’s investigation report.
The ride was intentionally designed without safety harnesses — a mainstay feature on other vertical drop rides — to make it more exciting.
It relies on two lap belts: one that is like a safety belt in a motor vehicle and the other with a special bolt on its end that fits into a monitored locking mechanism.