Like this:

If you’re like me, the following news in the ongoing saga of Kaitlyn Lasitter (the Louisville, Kentucky teen who had both of her feet severed on Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom’s Superman Tower of Power last June) will shock you to the point of inducing involuntary bodily functions. All I know is that after I read it, I flooded my trousers with urine, and then made a cocoa-bomb in my Hanes while cleaning up the first mess. I haven’t been this stunned since I actually liked Tom Arnold in True Lies.

 Read on, but just make sure you’re over a non-porous surface. Learn from my error.

 LOUISVILLE, Ky. –A maintenance supervisor for a Louisville amusement park said workers did not follow several of the ride manufacturer’s instructions for handling a cable that snapped and severed the feet of a teenager last summer.

 John Schmidt, the park’s ride-maintenance manager since 1999, said in a deposition in November that technicians for the theme park never performed a hands-on inspection before the accident on any of the 10 cables on the Superman Tower of Power ride.

 I know, I know…the idea of Six Flags, the world leader in filthy and understaffed parks, would skimp on basic and preventative maintenance is something that chills me to the core of my being. I (along with what are undoubtedly thousands of my readers) had believed that little Miss Lasitter had lost her shoe holders simply because “God” had deemed it so.

 What’s that, you say? There’s more?

 Schmidt, 56, also said that park technicians did not lubricate the cables monthly, and that they applied cornstarch to reduce “cable slippage” from over-lubrication that they believed was coming from the ride’s machinery.

 Quick, someone get right over to the Wikipedia entry for “cornstarch”, and add this fabulous new use for everyone’s favorite starch of the maize grain. I’ll get you started; it should look similar to this:

 Cornstarch also has many uses in the manufacturing of environmentally-friendly products. For example, in 2004, the Japanese company Pioneer announced a biodegradable Blu-Ray disc made out of cornstarch. The use for the plastic is vast, as it is a renewable plastic that has the benefits of being biodegradable, used in injection molding, in extruders, and other common milling processes.

 Cornstarch is used by employees of the Six Flags family of theme parks on amusement rides to reduce “cable slippage” in cases where excess lubrication is coming from somewhere else in the ride’s machinery. This is a popular use for employees who would rather be texting their friends or discussing the most recent episode of “Dancing With The Stars”, rather than investigating the source of the potential malfunction.

 Cornstarch has been used as a replacement for talc in baby powder.

 Fuckin’ Six Flags. And as a final boot in the ass, from the source article itself (bold lettering added by me for dramatic effect):

 The company that made the ride and installed it at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, Intamin, gives instructions in the ride manual about using a rag to inspect the cables. The manual states that maintenance workers should check at least every six months for fractured wires by holding a cotton rag around each cable while the ride operates in maintenance, or manual, mode.

 Schmidt said in his deposition that workers conducted twice-weekly visual inspections, “It was never brought to my attention to check those cables with a rag for snags.“

 I feel a whole lot safer strapping myself into a metal contraption that drops me 200 feet toward the cold, unforgiving earth knowing that park’s ride maintenance manager doesn’t even know basic instructions for ride operation. I mean, where else is he going to find that information? Well, aside from the manual provided by the original fucking manufacturer?

 People ask me why I refuse to join them on outings to my local Six Flags park. When news like this comes to light, I’m not even sure I feel safe driving past the park on the interstate. Who knows when a full train of American Eagle riders is going to derail from the helix and land square in the middle of Interstate 94? Or when a faulty gas line will cause the park’s Johnny Rockets restaurant to explode in a greezy fireball, effectively creating a biohazardous cloud over picturesque Gurnee, Illinois?

 Granted, those two examples are pretty outlandish (the rickety American Eagle barely tops out at twenty-five miles an hour these days in the helix), but the fear of an accident due to negligent maintenance is all too real. When you visit any amusement park, you’re trusting that their rides are in top working order and the park is doing everything they can to ensure that guests are safe. I’ve felt that trust deteriorate at the Six Flags parks year after year, and these comments from a ride maintenance manager giving a deposition under oath doesn’t make me feel any better.

So give that some thought next time you’re thinking about heading out to your local Six Flags and dropping fifty bones for admission. One day, it’s a snapped cable ripping a teenage girl’s feet clean off. The next, it could be your blood showering down on a retail kiosk selling twenty-dollar homogeneous Warner Brothers character merchandise.

Me? Fuck that. I’ll see you at Cedar Point.