Last Sunday, a safety handle on this roller coaster ride malfunctioned
But when a family complained, the ride was not stopped immediately, and the handle was not repaired for several hours
All of the Como Park rides are owned and operated by the Fred O'Neill family
The O'Neills have leased the site from the City of St. Paul for over 30 years
and there has never been a serious accident involving any of their rides
Today, I and Vic Wickenstein from the St. Paul Park and Rec Department
checked the roller coaster problem with Fred O'Neill Jr. O'Neill explained to us that a catch, or dog as he calls them, on one car handle failed Sunday
There's one, there's another, there's another. Well, we're switching from one dog to another
It wasn't coming all the way open. From one to the other
See, there's keys in there and they match. And it's fixed now
It's fixed now. All it took was a minor adjustment. But why was the problem not fixed immediately
It was a lack of communication between my ride boy and my maintenance man
That'd be about it. Do you feel that that problem made the ride unsafe at that time
I don't believe anybody could have been hurt. Like I said, there was one dog there that didn't catch
and it would just go up to the next dog, so it might have slipped an inch, inch and a half
That would be about it. You don't think a child could have been thrown out then
No, a child couldn't have been thrown out. There's no way. And O'Neill says the ride operator has since been reprimanded for not immediately reporting the problem
O'Neill's rides are regularly checked by his insurance company, but some states have their own amusement park safety inspectors
Minnesota does not have such inspectors. How do you feel about having a state inspector for amusement rides like this
Well, I think, again, it would give us an assurance of the safety of the rides
so it's pretty hard to be opposed to something like that. I would agree with Fred O'Neill, though, that it has to be somebody that does no rides
It can't just be, like he said, a building inspector. Even though there are no government inspectors here
St. Paul Park and rec officials do have the authority to shut down any ride which they feel is unsafe
and so far the city is satisfied that the rides here are safe
Bob Clark, Channel 5 Eyewitness News, at Como Park