00:01The Terror Tram
00:05Universal Studios, the place where you can ride the movies.
00:09But sometimes, the horror isn't just on the screen.
00:12Sometimes, it's waiting for you, right around the corner.
00:16Our first story takes us back to Halloween Night, 1986.
00:20Universal Studios Hollywood was hosting its annual Halloween Horror Night special event.
00:25The main attraction? The Terror Tram, a nighttime version of the famous studio tour
00:31where trams would drive through dark, foggy sets
00:34and scare actors would jump out and, you know, do their thing.
00:38One of those scare actors was 20-year-old Paul Ribalde Brooks.
00:43It was his job to lunge at the trams, getting as close as possible to give the guests a good
00:48scream.
00:48But on this night, something went horribly wrong.
00:52It was dark. The trams were moving.
00:55Paul was working in the narrow space between two tram cars.
00:59He either lost his balance or misjudged the distance.
01:02He fell into the gap, right into the path of the moving tram behind him.
01:07The tram, weighing several tons, rolled over him.
01:11He was crushed instantly between the heavy vehicles.
01:14He died right there, on the tracks, in the middle of the horror show he was supposed to be a
01:20part of.
01:20The official cause of death was severe crush injuries to his torso and a presumed skull fracture.
01:26It was a horrific, tragic accident, a combination of poor visibility, moving vehicles,
01:33and the inherent danger of having actors working so close to the machinery.
01:37After the incident, Universal shut down its Halloween events in Hollywood for six long years.
01:43When it finally returned in 1992 as Halloween Horror Nights, the safety rules were much, much stricter.
01:51A tragic lesson, learned at the cost of a young man's life.
01:58The collapsing floor.
02:01Just a month after the terror tram tragedy, death visited Universal Studios Hollywood again.
02:07This time, it wasn't a guest or an actor.
02:10It was one of the people building the magic.
02:13On November 28th, 1986, a construction crew was working on a new project on the studio lot.
02:20Two workers were in the bucket of a massive 30,000-pound, about 13,600-kilogram, crane.
02:27They were high above a temporary work floor made of plywood.
02:31Now, I'm no engineer, but putting a 15-ton piece of machinery on a temporary wooden floor sounds like a
02:37bad idea.
02:39And, um, it was.
02:41The floor suddenly gave way under the immense weight of the crane.
02:45The entire structure collapsed.
02:49The crane plunged through the floor, throwing the two men from the bucket.
02:53One of the workers, whose name was never publicly released, fell onto the steel and concrete structures below.
03:00He suffered massive head and chest trauma and was rushed to St. Joseph Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
03:07His partner, miraculously, survived with only minor injuries.
03:11An investigation by OSHA later pointed to what everyone suspected.
03:15The temporary floor was simply not strong enough to support the crane.
03:20It was a catastrophic failure of planning and risk assessment.
03:24A man went to work to build a place of fantasy and dreams, and died because someone, somewhere, didn't do
03:31the math right.
03:33Just, wow.
03:37The Mummy's Curse.
03:40We jump forward now to 2004.
03:42Universal Studios Florida.
03:44The brand-new, high-tech, indoor roller coaster, Revenge of the Mummy, had just opened.
03:50It was a huge hit.
03:52But on September 21st, the ride's name took on a grim new meaning.
03:56A 39-year-old man from Apopka, Florida, was at the loading station, about to board the coaster.
04:03It was a normal day at the park, guests getting on and off the ride.
04:07As he went to step from the stationary platform into the coaster car, he missed his step.
04:12It was a small mistake, a simple loss of balance.
04:15But the consequences were devastating.
04:18He fell into the gap between the platform and the ride vehicle,
04:22dropping about four feet onto the hard, concrete structures below.
04:26He hit his head.
04:28Hard.
04:29Really hard.
04:30He was immediately in severe pain, showing clear signs of a serious head injury.
04:36Paramedics rushed him to the Orlando Regional Medical Center for emergency surgery.
04:41But the damage was too severe.
04:43He died the next day.
04:46Investigators found no mechanical problems with the ride.
04:48It was a tragic, freak accident.
04:51A simple misstep.
04:52But it led to a man's death and raised questions about the safety of loading platforms.
04:58After the incident, Universal made changes to the area,
05:01adding extra warning signs and visual markers on the floor to guide guests and prevent another fall.
05:09The Dragon's Bite
05:12It's July 1st, 2009.
05:14The sun is just coming up over Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando.
05:19Before the gates open, before the first guests rush in,
05:22the park is a hive of activity.
05:25Maintenance crews are checking every nut, every bolt, every sensor.
05:29And on Dueling Dragons, one of the park's most iconic coasters, they're running test cycles.
05:35An employee, whose name was never released, was working that morning.
05:39He was in a restricted area, a low zone underneath the track where the coaster whips by at high speed.
05:45We don't know why he was there.
05:48Maybe he dropped something, maybe he was taking a shortcut, but he was in the wrong place at the worst
05:53possible time.
05:56During a test run, one of the empty coaster trains came roaring through that section of the track.
06:01The employee was struck, he suffered multiple severe head injuries, and was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he
06:11underwent intensive treatment and a long recovery.
06:13After the incident, the park closed the ride temporarily and installed new fences and barriers to physically block off those
06:20restricted areas.
06:22It's a grim pattern we see over and over.
06:25A tragedy happens, and only then are the obvious safety measures put in place.
06:32The King's Toll
06:35This next case is a little different.
06:37It's not about a mechanical failure or an employee mistake.
06:41It's about a hidden danger, and a family's fight for justice.
06:46On December 10, 2016, Jose Calderon Arana, a 38-year-old businessman from Guatemala, was visiting Islands of Adventure with
06:55his family.
06:56They decided to ride Skull Island Reign of Kong, a big, intense 3D dark ride.
07:02The ride has standard warnings posted outside.
07:05If you have heart problems, back or neck problems, or are pregnant, you shouldn't ride.
07:10The problem?
07:11Those signs were only in English.
07:14Jose didn't speak English.
07:16He saw the pictograms, but they didn't convey the seriousness of the warning.
07:20He had a pre-existing heart condition.
07:23He got on the ride.
07:25After the ride, he told his wife he didn't feel well.
07:28Thinking it was just motion sickness, she suggested he rest on a bench while she and their son went on
07:33another ride.
07:34When they came back, they found him collapsed.
07:37He had suffered a massive heart attack.
07:40He was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late.
07:44Two years later, his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Universal.
07:49Their argument was simple.
07:50Universal knows it has millions of international visitors who don't speak English.
07:56Why weren't the life and death warning signs multilingual?
07:59The family argued that the simple pictograms weren't enough to communicate the risk to someone with a serious heart condition.
08:06Universal, for its part, pointed out that their blog and some other materials were available in Spanish, but they didn't
08:12comment on the on-site signage.
08:15The outcome of the lawsuit was never made public, but it raises a huge question.
08:20In a place that attracts people from all over the world, how much responsibility does a park have to make
08:26sure its warnings are understood by everyone?
08:29For the Arana family, the answer was written in the most tragic terms imaginable.
08:37The CityWalk Showdown
08:38Our next story doesn't take place inside a park, but right on its doorstep.
08:44Universal CityWalk in Orlando.
08:47A place of restaurants, shops, and nightclubs.
08:50On April 22, 2011, it also became the scene of a fatal confrontation.
08:5733-year-old Adam Spencer Johnson was at CityWalk around midnight.
09:01According to police reports, he was acting disorderly and erratically near the movie theater.
09:08Off-duty Orlando police officers, who were working as security for Universal, confronted him.
09:14The details of what happened next are murky.
09:17The police said Johnson became aggressive and got into a struggle with them.
09:21One of the officers deployed his taser, hitting Johnson and sending him to the ground.
09:26They handcuffed him, but moments later, he became unresponsive.
09:31The officers tried to resuscitate him.
09:33He was rushed to the hospital, but he died.
09:36The incident sparked a huge controversy.
09:40Was the use of a taser justified?
09:42Was it a proportional response?
09:45Johnson's death became part of a national debate about the safety of stun guns,
09:49especially when used on people who might have underlying health conditions.
09:53While the legal liability fell on the Orlando Police Department, the death cast a dark shadow
10:00over Universal.
10:01It was a violent, public death that happened right in the middle of their entertainment complex.
10:07A grim reminder that sometimes, the real world and its dangers can intrude on the fantasy.
10:16The final launch.
10:18This last one is...
10:21tough.
10:22It's a story that's still unfolding, and it raises some of the most difficult questions
10:27about accessibility, risk, and who gets to decide what's safe.
10:33On September 17th, 2025, just after the grand opening of Universal's brand new theme park,
10:39Epic Universe, 32-year-old Kevin Rodriguez Zavala decided to ride the new high-speed dueling
10:45coaster, Stardust Racers.
10:48Kevin had a congenital spinal cord condition and used a wheelchair, but he wanted to experience
10:53the ride, just like everyone else.
10:55He boarded the coaster, secured by the restraint system.
11:00During, or immediately after the ride, he was found unresponsive in his seat.
11:06He was rushed to the hospital, but he was pronounced dead.
11:10The medical examiner's report was chilling.
11:12The cause of death was multiple blunt impact injuries.
11:17The ride itself had, in essence, killed him.
11:22Now, here's where it gets complicated.
11:24Universal and state investigators said the ride was functioning normally.
11:29No mechanical defects.
11:30No malfunctions.
11:31The coaster did exactly what it was designed to do.
11:35But the lawyers representing Kevin's family tell a very different story.
11:39They claim that Kevin's head repeatedly struck the restraint harness during the ride,
11:44and that those impacts are what killed him.
11:46The case sparked an immediate and intense debate.
11:50Universal maintained that the ride was safe and functioned as intended.
11:54Disability advocates and guests argued that the restraint systems on these increasingly aggressive
11:59coasters are not suitable for people with certain body types or physical conditions.
12:05The man knew his own condition, but did he truly understand the risk?
12:09Did Universal do enough to warn him?
12:12It's a tragic and complicated case with no easy answers.
12:16A man wanted to experience the same thrill as everyone else.
12:20He wanted to ride the new, big coaster.
12:22And for that, he paid the ultimate price.
12:26It forces us to ask a very difficult question.
12:29Where do we draw the line between accessibility and safety?
12:33And who gets to make that call?
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