35 Horror Stories That Prove "Action Park" Was The Most Dangerous Park Ever

Last week Dailymotion and Mashable released a documentary on the notoriously dangerous ACTION PARK… which left the Internet awash in water park horror stories from New Jersey residents.

1. Action Park was pain for the whole family. This dude's whole lineage suffered...

joea62484 / Via reddit.com

"Me: sprained ankle walking on the wet rocks.

My dad: Broken nose - in the dark cave of the river rapids ride he got knocked in the air and into my face.

My friend's dad: 20 or so stitches from flying off of the alpine slide."

2. And this story reads like a real-life Final Destination movie.

Carolyn Gillish / Via nj.com

"I was there 3 times when I was 9 or 10 - I left 2 times in an ambulance.

The 1st time was broken ribs on the 'Tarzan Swing' (my dad had to jump into the water to save me - NOT the ride operator.)

Next was the alpine slide, my car had no brakes- 1st big turn I flew over the slide and into the grass - my WHOLE right side was cut up - and then had to walk the whole way down crying and dripping blood.

They kept sending us free passes to go back - so we went again - I was EXTREMELY cautious - only went on 1 ride - a kayak where you simply paddled around a sort of lazy river. I LOVED IT and it was safe!!! The VERY next day the ride was closed because someone fell off their kayak and was electrocuted by the electric currents. Never went back again - too afraid."

3. At Action Park,sometimes you had to crawl your way out of a dark hole.

Eric Michael Arnone / Via Facebook: ISurvivedActionPark

"The 'water' tube that goes underground and is supposed to eject you into a freezing lake. Well there wasn't enough water in the tube and I only weighed about 57 pounds at the time. I went "sliding" down the tube, but got stuck in the middle of the tube, essentially in the dark. Everyone on the outside of the tube kept waiting for me to shoot out - but after a few minutes they realized I wasn't coming out. I had suffered abrasions to the back of my legs due to the friction induced stop which was caused by the dry tube. I eventually turned myself around in the tube started crawling on all fours towards the opening, but was too scared to jump into the water. So after some hesitation, I just sort of fell out like a crumpled, demoralized child, and hit the freezing water. I never went on it again."

4.The staffers got hurt too!

knightjohannes / Via reddit.com

"Staff, after/before hours would take the single tubes from the other rides on the river, daisy chain them and fly down the damn thing. One time the guy at the very end couldn't hold on, flipped off his tube and wrapped his poor body around a tree. Oops."

5. Injuries apparently included but were not limited to ELECTROCUTION

Pherimen / Via nj.com

"My mother was a pediatric nurse in the local hospital, so she would get all the injuries severe enough to be admitted to the hospital: Lots of kids in traction (broken legs), near drownings (especially those city kids in the wave pool) and even an electrocution from a malfunctioning pump."

6. Diet camps brought their kids there and had them jump off of cliffs.

Mike Goldstein / Via nj.com

"I remember a 450 lb. 15 year old camper doing a belly flop off the cliff into the pool and his stomach and chest being purple and red for weeks- and he was African American."

7. It also had a waterslide that went IN A COMPLETE UPSIDE-DOWN LOOP

Robert Yates / Via nj.com

"The loop was downright dangerous. Each one of my friends came out holding the back of their heads because it slammed into the slide while looping."

8. A COMPLETE, UPSIDE-DOWN LOOP

"The looping water slide was just constructed without any real design, the first person through the slide lost his front teeth, then they decided they needed water at the top of the loop. When most of the water slides were built, the plans were only used as a guide, they were not followed precisely, leading to all sorts of issues when the slide went into service."

"At some point they built a trap door by the loop so they could retrieve injured, drowning riders, because the thought never occurred to them in the original planning."

9. This can't be true, can it? Tell me it isn't real.

Aaron Bell / Via on.mash.to

"Memories of a bloody nose and a fractured finger says that it was open. but to be honest, i probably suffered a concussion so my memory may have been a little foggy."

"In the same day we were there, a guy got stuck in the loop on that waterslide and another person broke their neck cliff diving."

10. The Alpine Slide was the sort of ride that could FUSE YOU TO YOUR T-SHIRT

Rachel Bernard-Moore / Via on.mash.to

"I remember my dad flipping off the cart on the Alpine Slide and sliding down the 'tube' himself. His T shirt melted on to his skin from the friction... yukky."

11. ALWAYS WEAR A SHIRT, THOUGH

mpcarrollr25 / Via nj.com

"My one friend decided that brakes -- and shirts -- were for sissies. About halfway down, he and the sled parted ways, so he slid down the track for a few feet. I'm not sure than any of the hair on his legs ever grew back, and his back is probably still one big scar."

12. Losing skin was just part of the experience

"You couldn't leave there with all of the skin you came in with, and you left with bruises you didn't know you could get. Besides that, it was great!"

"My brother worked there and peeled a crazy amount of skin off his leg on the alpine slide, if I remember right he said his leg ended up under the scooter somehow."

"Walking around the park you would think you were in a ward for some epidemic. Every third person you saw had a nasty red welt on their leg or arm or elbow."

13. How many fun parks leave you with a leg that looks like "ground beef"?? At least one. Action Park.

Ted Striker / Via nj.com

"On the Alpine Slide, an idiot who went down just ahead of my brother lost his flip-flop halfway down. Instead of pulling his sled off the track when he stopped to retrieve it, he left the sled on the track and walked up the hill. My brother, coming down full force, panicked after seeing his empty sled, yanked his brake and toppled to the side. When I got to the bottom his leg looked like ground beef with bad road rash."

14. The phrase "no skin off my back" had WEIGHT at Action Park

njmiamifan2 / Via nj.com

"My younger brother was flying down the Alpine slide and I was gaining on him. he turned around and floored it. Now way would he let me catch him. Near the end he realized he was going to fly into people and crash. He pulled back on the brake....I don't remember full details but his entire back scrapped against the alpine slide. It literally ripped the skin off his back."

15. Some theme parks leave guests with souvenir keychains, Action Park left many with souvenir scars.

"I had a classmate get a scrape on his arm with the alpine slide. It was literally almost 2 ft long."

"Alpine slide was a great way to defoliate your skin. Some of the cement tracks are still visible. There's lots of DNA up there in them hills!"

"...the most surreal road rash I've ever seen. The friction was severe enough that the f'er seemingly cauterized itself as it happened so only thousands of tiny beads of blood percolated up."

But the battle wounds were worth it: "I just looked down at my 20 year old Alpine Slide scars, and realized that it was worth every inch of scorched concrete 'road rash."

16. You weren't even safe if you WANTED to go slow.

"...the person they sent down 15 seconds after you would inevitably outweigh you by 200 lbs and be legally drunk, so they would slam into you like a Mack truck."

"Lots of middle-aged women who didn't get the technique for controlling their speed, and then learning very quickly, that they were in trouble . . . as their carts and them flew over the curve into the rocks and trees!"

17. This guy is still having back problems.

David Weiland / Via nj.com

"I am proud to say that I survived the Alpine Slide even after a bad accident and being taken away on a stretcher. I recall hitting the sled in front of me, flying off the track and I kept on rolling just missing from hitting my head on these huge rocks. My bad back to this day started because of that accident."

18. Uhhhhhh......

Danielle Towne / Via nj.com

"I remember goin to action park as a kid and im now 37yrs old and my most vivid memory was waiting for my dad and brother to come down the alpine slide for what seemed like hours and my brother came down but not my dad cause the car he was in flipped because of some kind of build up on the track and we had to rush him to a hospital cause he cruised the bone in his ankle and had to have surgery and pins put in and was bruised from head to toe and is disabled from it so thanks action park!! great memories!!!"

19. Because the speed and friction aren't terrifying enough, the bacterial water gave this lady HEP A.

Dee / Via nj.com

"I only went once and once was all you needed. There was a water slide that got me a week in the hospital. Turns out the bacteria in the water gave me hepatitis A. The good thing is I am told I can never catch hep A again."

20. Even the bumper boats were snapping tibias in half...

leescotthoward / Via nj.com

"I remember one time I went the bumper boats were really small, so tall people's legs hung over the front of the boat. Bet you can guess what happened next...yup call the meat wagon to take away another broken leg!"

21. At Action Park you could just FALL RIGHT OUT OF THE WATERSLIDES

Robert Yates / Via nj.com

"The kamikaze slides were insane. They quite literally went straight down. The one time I rode it, I hung down off the "pull up" - like start bar with my feet dangling; lifted my head up to see if I could see the slide. I could not. I pulled myself back up to regroup and then released. I came completely off the slide; hit the safety net, which then propelled me back onto the slide and then I proceeded to free fall to the end."

22. Concussions!

steven_lowell / Via nj.com

"Several things come to mind:

1. Friend's mom breaking wrist on Alpine Slide...very cool to watch.

2. Heavy man cant hold the Tarzan swing, falls off the dock.

3. Concussion from dropping off 30-ft cliff."

23. WHAT? NO. STOP IT.

Alison HainzI / Via on.mash.to

"One favorite story is a kid who crashed a Formula One racer (or maybe a Lola Car) and his two front teeth were dangling out of his bloody mouth by his braces."

24. Ambulances in the area were known as the ACTION PARK EXPRESS.

Donna DiCorcia Davis / Via Facebook: ISurvivedActionPark

"My memories are of the Wallkill Valley Ambulances speeding down rt.94 towards the park every day and sometimes 3x a day during the summer! We used to call it the ambulances 'The Action Park' express!"

"The park actually bought more ambulances for the town of Vernon to keep up with the carnage."

25. Think only the rule-breakers got hurt? WRONG.

muvablefeast / Via nj.com

"I eventually broke my leg simply by going down a water slide, dutifully following all of the rules. I attributed my maiming to the fact that I was wearing a wetsuit and perhaps achieved rocket speed because I was somehow more slippery."

26. The standard ride testing/design process merely warded off DISMEMBERMENT

Donielle King / Via nj.com

"My father built the Alpine Slide, the Cannonball, as well as many others. The story about the dummies is completely true! They used the dummies to test several of the rides at the park and every time a dummy came off the ride dismembered they would try it again until it stayed in one piece, then they would pay someone to test it!"

27. The New Jersey summer weather was nice... when it wasn't RAINING RACCOONS.

David Templeman / Via on.mash.to

"The best / most dangerous ride there was Surf Hill… … if you really knew what you were doing, it was really easy to skip over the "catch pond" at the end and go rocketing into the wall. Many many back injuries up there. I remember one season, a racoon fell out of a tree on to surf hill....

ah... the fun."

28. It probably didn't help that EVERYONE WAS WASTED

"I worked food service and the Alpine Slide through high school and college. I can tell you that there was a direct correlation between danger and beer. Saw a lot of Alpine burns on drunk guys."

Add to that some heavy-drinking employees and at least one who was more than drunk...

29. "I was covered in blood."

"I actually flipped off the slide... and slid down the concrete, shredding the skin on one side. I was covered in blood."

"I spent every summer there as a kid. I remember seeing a puddle of blood on the steps up from the river raft ride."

30. Fall off your raft? It's right into a cave of jagged rocks for you.

NJ1212 / Via nj.com

"The Colorado River was great. You would fly down the first drop and then the raft would hit this fork in the course dead on every time. The raft would fold up like a taco and you were lucky if you were able to stay in the raft at this point. The ones who fell out got swept into the dark cave with raging rapids and sharp jagged rocks everywhere to be cut up all over your body. Good times."

31. The free enemas weren't openly advertised but they were widely known.

"That huge water slide was an unexpected 'enema'. Lol"

"We always did it head first (hands out in front of you). Saved you from the water enema that you would get going the way they made the customers do it."

"As a frequent visitor you learned quickly to exchange the bikini for a wetsuit because of the insane wedgies and, well, complimentary enemas that came with each ride."

32. "He needed BRAIN SURGERY."

thepete / Via io9.com

"When I was a kid I visited Action Park a few times. One of those times my step-brother came out of a water tube wrong and hit his head on the floor of a pool. He needed brain surgery."

33. Got your nose!

Ilene Kurs / Via on.mash.to

"I busted my nose on a water slide. They sent me down and my dad who was obviously heavier goes faster and then they sent him down and then CRASH blood everywhere."

34. Action Park was also known as Traction Park for a reason.

AmyWestWind / Via nj.com

"I was only there once, and left with a heavily-bleeding, foot-long by 9-inch wide abrasion on the back of my thigh after being dumped out of an inner-tube ride near the beginning of the ride, being trapped UNDER the upside-down tube, and completing the last 75% of the ride with my thigh being scraped along the rough bottom of the waterway while nearly drowning (still under the tube, in the dark)."

35. The wave pool's nickname was THE GRAVEPOOL

"Most places make their wavepools family friendly and fun. Action Park had a very Darwinian wavepool that forced the lifeguards to get just as much action. I think they waited until somebody took their 4th gulp of water before rushing to help, otherwise they would have been better off just remaining in the pool."

"Those waves had nothing to do with actual waves or currents, more like a drain pulling you down."

How could such a place exist? Watch Part 1 of the Dailymotion/Mashable doc on Action Park here.

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And that didn't even cover the deaths. There were a few. Thus...

Watch Part 2, chronicling the park's closing.

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Ok, now share your scar photos. This post needs more scar photos. Bring it, Jersey.