football helmets). A rider recounted to Weird NJ how a friend's mother suffered a broken nose when their raft was thrown into a rock wall. On the curve before the first fork, rafts commonly got stuck – requiring riders to have to jump out, and push the raft – or wait for the raft behind them to hit them. The collisions between rafts sometimes led to fistfights among patrons. Inside the tunnel were jagged rocks, which could cause cuts or scrapes if riders placed their hands out. The Aerodium The Aerodium is a skydiving simulator wind tunnel invented in Germany in 1984. In 1987, Action Park built and opened its own Aerodium in the Waterworld section of the park, becoming the first American amusement park to open one. The attraction was operated by Aerodium Inc., which acted as a concessionaire for the park through 1997. Stadium seating encircled the perimeter of the Aerodium, allowing friends and spectators to watch riders fly. Riders wearing a special skydiving suit, helmet, and earplugs would join the bodyflight instructor one-by-one on a trampoline-like netting directly over the fan. The instructor would grab each rider's wrists and guide the rider to fall forward, allowing the fan to lift the rider skyward. After a few seconds of flight, the attendant operating the fan would cut the power, causing the rider to fall onto the air cushions surrounding the fan. Park guests' flights were limited to a maximum of above the ground, about over the instructor's head. The Aerodium also caused severe injuries, for example, when a rider instinctively tried to break his fall by extending his arm, which caused shoulder dislocation, severed nerves, and near-permanent paralysis of the arm. Factors contributing to the park's safety record A range of factors contributed to accidents at the park, from the design and construction of the rides themselves to the makeup of both visitors and staff, and lax government oversight. Ride design Action Park and its defenders often pointed out that it was one of the first water parks in the nation, pioneering ideas that were later widely copied. This meant that visitors were using rides that had not been tested through practical use for very long. Ride designers may have had insufficient training in physics or engineering. "They seemed to build rides," one attendee recalled, "not knowing how they would work, and [then let] people on them." GAR,