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No fault found in Disney ride after woman's death
Mission: Space, a spinning ride with posted warnings, reopens after an inspection. The victim's autopsy is today.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 14, 2006
ORLANDO - Walt Disney World reopened its Mission: Space attraction Thursday after engineers found it was operating properly, a day after a woman who got off the ride feeling ill died at a hospital.
The Medical Examiner's Office said Thursday the victim was Hiltrud Bleumel, 49, of Germany. State officials said Disney reported the woman felt dizzy and nauseous after her ride Tuesday. She was taken to Celebration Hospital, where she died Wednesday.
An autopsy was planned for today, according to a written statement from the Medical Examiner's Office. "The family has asked us not to release any additional information," Disney spokeswoman Kim Prunty said.
It was the second death in less than a year of a rider of the Epcot attraction, which has motion sickness bags and signs warning people with heart, back and neck problems not to board it. The attraction spins riders in a centrifuge that subjects them to twice the force of gravity. Some riders have been taken to hospitals with chest pain.
But the theme park said Thursday that "Walt Disney World engineers and ride system experts completed a thorough inspection of the attraction overnight and found it to be operating properly."
A worker from the state Bureau of Fair Rides Inspection monitored the testing, and the ride didn't appear "to be acting abnormal in any way," said Terence McElroy, a spokesman for Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which oversees the bureau.
Disney officials called state inspectors when the woman became ill, McElroy said. In a 911 tape released Thursday, a male caller said the victim was conscious but pale when she left the ride.
Disney also closed the space ride in June after the death of 4-year-old Daudi Bamuwamye of Sellersville, Pa., who passed out while aboard it. An autopsy determined that the boy died of an irregular heartbeat linked to abnormal thickening of the heart muscle. The ride reopened after company engineers concluded it was running normally.
[Last modified April 14, 2006, 01:55:46]
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