Strong Intuition Saved Us
By Sue Greenwald
When my daughter was about 3, around 1996, we went to the Ocean City NJ boardwalk, where there are rides and amusements. I bought handfuls of tickets, and my plan was to take her on a variety of rides for a few hours. She was always brave, loving roller coasters and active rides, even as a little kid! We used to go to amusement parks, and she’d ride the roller coasters all day!
I took her on a ride called the “Wild Mouse”, which is a tall, multi layered roller coaster type of ride, where you take quick tight turns, and go up and down different levels. We got on the ride, and for some reason, I felt extremely nervous about it, even though we’d been on the same ride at different locations.
I had and instant and strong feeling that something was wrong. I decided to get off, but it was too late to exit. They wouldn’t let us off, as that would disrupt the timing of all the carts. I wrapped one arm around my daughter, and hooked the other around the sidebar of the ride the entire time. The ride was really rough, and I was nervous, but we made it through ok. We left the park right after as I felt so unsettled, not even riding any other rides, although I’d been planning to take my daughter on many of the rides that evening.
The next morning, I walked by a local newspaper stand, and happened to see the headline. The top story was about the very same Wild Mouse ride, where 2 carts had fallen off. Two people were killed on that ride…about 10 minutes after we’d gotten off! Several of the carts fell off the ride.
I was covered in goosebumps, and realized that I’d intuitively felt the danger when I was there. I thanked the angels for saving us immediately, knowing that we had narrowly missed that accident.