We shared our roller coaster stories because some other people got stuck upside down for 2 hours

How would you feel to be trapped upside down on a roller coaster, 100 feet above the ground? This nightmare was a reality for riders of “The Flying Dinosaur” at Universal Studios Japan on Wednesday, who were trapped for up for two hours before rescue crews were able to safely disembark every passenger.

Everyone was able to leave the ride safely, and there have been no reported injuries as a result of the ride malfunction. It resumed operation following a safety check, but still — trapped upside down for two hours?

The story got the SB Nation crew talking about our own theme park-related misfortunes, and we quickly learned that our ratio of employees to accidents was abnormally high. Some stories were too horrifying to be included here, but these are the experiences of our staff that didn’t involve someone’s death.

The Zipper, by Nate Scott

Growing up there was a traveling little amusement park called, I shit you not, Clown Town, that would come to my small town in New England every year. This little park would bring its rickety rides via trailer to our town square, set up, and we’d have our own little amusement park each year. Most of the rides were small time, teacup-spinning-type stuff. But there was one called The Zipper.

The Zipper was an elongated spinning contraption with cars that fanned out from a central rotating structure, but the cars, which were caged in, would spin on their own axes. So riders, trapped in these cages, would be flipping about violently as the thing would move in a big circle up in the air. It was horrifying, and despite many years attending Clown Town, I never once set foot on the thing.

Anyway, one year someone got on The Zipper who should not have been on The Zipper. Someone with a weak stomach. I didn’t see this happen in real time, but heard the screams in the distance, and sprinted over with my middle school friends, and saw the aftermath.

It was like a scene out of a war film when we arrived. There was screaming above and below. Screaming everywhere. People on the ground were crawling around on hands and knees. Children wept. This is probably my memory playing tricks on me, but I swear at one point I heard someone bellow out: “THE HORROR!”

Someone had vomited on the The Zipper, at the top of the ride, up above everything else at Clown Town. Which is sad for that person, yes, no one likes getting sick.

It was worse for the people in the cages directly underneath, as well as some people on the ground who were waiting to ride The Zipper. For them, it was carnage. I have never seen so much vomit spread so far in one place. (Afterward, during a too lengthy discussion over an ice cream I struggled to enjoy at our town Friendly’s, my friend posited that it must have been a chain reaction of puking, vomit begetting vomit, as there was no way one person could have caused the scene we encountered.) The screams I heard that day ... they stay with me. And I will never forget them.

The Georgia Scorcher, by Harry Lyles Jr.

I have only gone on a rollercoaster once, because I don’t like them and I am a big baby. I went on the Georgia Scorcher, and said “shit” the entire ride. Yup!

The Great Bear, by Seth Rosenthal

In 11th grade, we went on a “physics field trip” to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, which was basically just a day spent riding rides with like one math problem to solve at the end. On a roller coaster called The Great Bear, my friend Dave was sitting one car ahead of me and performed an incredible feat: Right as his car crested a hill, at the moment of weightlessness, he spit straight up in the air such that my trailing car passed through the falling saliva and I got a splash of spit straight to the fucking face.

The Gemini, by Jeanna Thomas

I was actually going to write about the time I got stuck on the Small World ride at Disney for over an hour at the end of the night with a bunch of tired, cranky, loud children, two of whom were mine, with that song playing over and over again. It’s not a roller coaster, but it is an amusement park ride, and it was a special kind of hell. However, Seth reminded me that when I was in high school my friend Jennifer and I were on the Gemini at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, and the girl in front of me spit toward the end of the ride and it landed on my arm. That’s objectively better than getting hit with some stranger’s spit in the face, but it was traumatic and I had successfully blocked it from my memory until right now. Please don’t spit while riding roller coasters. It’s disgusting and so very unnecessary.

Any ride at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, by Caroline Darney

I don’t have any complaints because Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the best amusement park in the world and has awesome roller coasters. Highly recommend. Go on the Griffon. It’s tops.