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Ride victim takes first steps
Pain, depression still haunt Louisville teen
By Charlie White
cwhite@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
With the help of a prosthetic leg, 14-year-old Kaitlyn Lasitter took her first steps last week since her feet were severed last summer on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom.
"She's so proud of herself that she has gotten around on crutches," said Larry Franklin, an attorney for the Louisville teenager and her family.
Kaitlyn also has regained her appetite and some weight after the various prescription medications she takes made her sick, her family recently told The Courier-Journal in an e-mail. Because of that, she had to be hospitalized on her birthday, Sept. 6.
Despite the progress she has made, Kaitlyn continues to battle pain, depression and the uncertainty of what will become of her reattached right foot. Her family says doctors have told them they will not know for months if Kaitlyn's body will accept or reject it.
And recently, Kaitlyn has been experiencing phantom pain from her missing left foot.
"To watch our daughter continually try to overcome such extreme pain and adversity has definitely been five of the most trying months of our lives," her parents, Randy and Monique Lasitter, wrote The Courier-Journal. "It tears us up inside to know something like this can happen to our child."
The Lasitters sued Kentucky Kingdom on July 12, claiming the theme park failed to maintain the ride and ensure riders' safety.
Kaitlyn was riding the Superman Tower of Power -- which lifted passengers 177 feet, then dropped them at speeds of more than 50 mph -- on June 21 when a cable broke, severing her feet.
She first was rushed to University Hospital in Louisville, then flown to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., where she underwent surgery. After Kaitlyn was released from the hospital, she and her family had to make several trips back to Nashville -- about 175 miles away -- for treatment.
She has been receiving treatment recently at Frazier Rehab Institute in downtown Louisville.
Before Kaitlyn received her prosthesis, just getting from one room of the family's Germantown home to another was difficult for her because the door openings of the family's near-century-old home are too narrow for her wheelchair.
Randy Lasitter said he often had to carry her, while at other times, Kaitlyn had to crawl.
Medical bills from Kaitlyn's surgeries and treatments already total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, her father said. Her prosthetic leg alone cost about $20,000.
The doctors and hospitals have agreed to wait for payment until the family's case against the theme park is resolved, Randy Lasitter said.
After the family moved to Louisville from Florida, Kaitlyn attended sixth grade at Meyzeek Middle School then transferred to Highland Middle School during seventh grade.
She was just beginning to get close to a group of students at Highland when she was hurt, her father said last night.
Kaitlyn regularly had friends over to swim in the family's in-ground pool, but her parents had yet to let her spend the night away from home.
"She hasn't dated, barely even had a first kiss," her father said.
After she was injured, other teenagers Kaitlyn was not as close to began leaving phone messages with insensitive jokes about her condition.
"Due to fears of more ridicule from her peers," her parents said, they decided to keep Kaitlyn at home for her eighth-grade year, teaching her with the help of online courses.
Her parents are now both working online from home so they can be with their daughter.
The state Department of Agriculture, which oversees ride safety, is investigating the incident that maimed Kaitlyn. Another hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 14.
The Lasitters say they hope their lawsuit will accomplish three goals:
"First, there is no one that wants this ride (taken) down more than our family so no one will ever have the opportunity to be hurt on this ride again," the family wrote to the newspaper. "What happened to our daughter could have happened to anyone's child that day.
"Secondly, that Kaitlyn receive the best care we can give her and that when she reaches maximum medical improvement, a trust fund can be established to provide for her future surgeries, prosthetics, physical therapy, etc. for her lifetime.
"Last, but not least, it is our opinion that if the reckless conduct of this corporation continues, all of our children will be at risk. It is our duty, as a member of the community, as well as Kaitlyn's parents, to ensure that the appropriate intervention is taken to prevent this from happening."
Kentucky Kingdom officials released a statement last night saying, "Once again, our deepest sympathies and prayers go out to Kaitlyn and the Lasitter family. This was a horrifically tragic and random accident that has left all of us at Kentucky Kingdom deeply saddened."
Attorneys for the theme park had asked Jefferson Circuit Judge Barry Willett for permission to take down the Superman Tower of Power, which is in a prominent place near the park entrance.
Willett ruled last week that Kentucky Kingdom can begin tearing down the ride Feb. 1, a spokeswoman for Kentucky Kingdom said.
While the Lasitters say they are glad the ride is being torn down, they fear the park will "take advantage of Kaitlyn's tragedy by replacing" it and holding a "great unveiling." The family said they don't believe any new ride should take the Superman Tower of Power's place.
In their statement last night, Kentucky Kingdom officials said, "For the record, we never planned to replace the ride and have been waiting to remove it at the first opportunity per the discovery process. We also have no plans to install a new ride in its place next year."
The Lasitters are seeking a jury trial, and waiting for all of the details of the incident to be released.
Ky. Kingdom ride had no automatic shutoff
By Jason Riley and Charlie White
The Courier-Journal
The maintenance chief of Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom acknowledged that a ride that severed a teenager's legs last summer had no automatic shutoff in case of a malfunction, according to court documents.
In a deposition released yesterday as part of a lawsuit against the park by Kaitlyn Lasitter and her family, ride maintenance manager John Schmidt said the Superman Tower of Power was not designed to shut down automatically when the cable broke.
"So if a cable breaks … the ride will keep operating as if nothing happened?" asked Larry Franklin, an attorney for the Lasitters, during the Nov. 30 deposition.
Schmidt answered yes.
"Do you think that this ride ought to shut down when a cable breaks?" Franklin asked.
"Yes," Schmidt said.
Asked why the June 21 accident occurred, Schmidt, who has been ride maintenance manager at Kentucky Kingdom since 1998, said all he knew was that a cable broke, but he didn't know why.
"I'll leave that up to the experts to tell me what has happened," he said.
The state Department of Agriculture is investigating the accident and has the broken cable. It soon will be sent to a laboratory for testing to determine why it broke.
Attorneys for the Lasitter family and those for Kentucky Kingdom have disagreed on which lab will do the testing. Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Barry Willett will rule on the question this week.
Carolyn McLean, a spokeswoman for Kentucky Kingdom, said she could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
The cables on the Superman Tower of Power ride were changed every three to four years, Schmidt said in his deposition, if not before. Schmidt handles hydraulic, electrical and mechanical functions of the rides,
He said ride technicians also visually checked the cables twice a week from the top of the ride.
Lab picked to test broken Tower of Power cable
By Charlie White
cwhite@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
A Jefferson Circuit Court judge selected a Louisville metallurgical forensics laboratory yesterday to perform tests on a broken cable from a ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom that severed a teenager's feet this summer.
What caused the cable to break on the Superman Tower of Power should be known in about two weeks, the length of time the tests are expected to take.
Judge Barry Willett said in his order that IMR Test Labs, which opened its Louisville office about five years ago, will conduct the tests.
The tests that will be performed were agreed upon by attorneys for the park and Kaitlyn Lasitter and her family.
The Lasitter family sued Kentucky Kingdom on July 12, claiming the park failed to maintain the ride and ensure riders' safety.
The state Department of Agriculture, which is charged with ride inspections in the state, is investigating the June 21 accident.
Willett granted the Lasitter family a temporary injunction to stop the park from altering or destroying the ride or the cable, ruling that no destructive testing could be performed on the cable until the parties agreed on a lab and the tests to be performed.
After several months passed without an agreement, Willett told attorneys last week that he would select the lab himself. Kentucky Kingdom wanted the contract to be awarded to a Chicago lab, but Willett chose the lab that the Lasitter family had selected.
On Nov. 30, Willett said the park can begin tearing the ride down Feb. 1. The park and the Lasitter family have said they want the ride to be dismantled.
Larry Franklin, the family's attorney, said he wanted IMR to perform the tests because it specializes in metallurgical failure analysis, which looks for a root cause of a metallic part's failure by examining its structural and chemical properties.
Nicole Liberto, an attorney for the Agriculture Department, said investigators are pleased a lab has been chosen.
"This will enable the department to resume its investigation and bring it to a conclusion," Liberto said.
IMR has done testing on equipment in all industries, including refineries and aerospace, said Brett Miller, lab director at IMR in Louisville. He said he could not comment on what his lab will be looking for with the Kentucky Kingdom cable.
In addition to the tests IMR will perform, IMR will select one of two laboratories, both in Ohio, that are accredited to test the cable's full-tensile strength - how much force can be exerted before something will break.
When the cable broke last summer, Kaitlyn Lasitter was seated in one of five cars on the Superman Tower of Power, a ride that lifted passengers 177 feet, then dropped them at speeds of more than 50 mph.
A witness who called 911 after the incident said he heard the cable snap as the ride was on its way up, but it remains unclear how the cable severed Kaitlyn's feet or when during the ride cycle the incident happened.
In a Nov. 30 deposition, ride maintenance manager John Schmidt said the ride had no automatic shutoff when a cable was out of place or broken.
The ride's computerized error log, which shows instances in which the ride does not complete a full cycle, showed that an emergency stop button was pushed by one of the two ride operators while Kaitlyn was on the ride, Schmidt said in the deposition, which was made public this week.
Kaitlyn was rushed to University Hospital, then flown to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., where doctors were able to reattach her right foot, though it is not yet clear whether her body will accept the reattachment.
Her left leg had to be amputated just below her knee.
Kaitlyn, now 14, took her first steps since the incident earlier this month with the help of crutches, her family told The Courier-Journal.
If her reattached right foot does not show improvement in functionality, doctors have told the family that Kaitlyn's best option may be to have her right leg amputated to the same length as her left so she can be fitted for a matching prosthetic, according to Franklin.
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