As more information comes out about 10-year-old Cindy Smith's death(死亡), worries about amusement park safety(游乐场安全性) grow.
Cindy is not the first child who died on an amusement park ride. 25 years ago, the mother of a 14-year-old girl waited to pick up her daughter outside Worlds of Fun. Laura Barry never saw her daughter Rosie alive again.
"My heart goes out to the Smith family more than they can ever possibly know," said Barry. She is one of the few people who truly know the hurt that family is feeling.
In 1995, Rosie's mom said that something went wrong on the Timber Wolf the night Rosie died. Police found no evidence(证据). Two men told the police that they saw Rosie standing before she fell out of the car.
"I couldn't believe that such a thing could happen still and again," said Barry. She believes Rosie's death should have been a wakeup call for amusement park safety.
She finds that not much has changed in the past years. Amusement parks race to build bigger, taller, faster rides. In her opinion, amusement parks just try to bring in visitors and give them the idea that riding is good, safe and fun. She believes that parks should have put safety first.
There is no exact number of amusement park deaths each year. It is quite low according to some websites. But Barry doesn't accept that. "My daughter was the only person that had ever been killed at Worlds of Fun in all of the years, among all of the thousands and thousands of people that went there. The number doesn't mean anything, you know, because when your child is the one, that's one too many," she said.
