Disability Cited in Roller Coaster Fall Death

BOSTON — A 55-year-old man who died after falling out of a roller coaster shouldn't have been allowed on the ride because he was heavy and had cerebral palsy, his mother said Sunday.

Germaine Mordarsky said her son, Stanley J. Mordarsky, could barely walk and used a motorized scooter for transportation.

"How could anybody as heavy as he was go up and spin up in the air like a yo-yo? It doesn't make any sense. He was over 200 pounds, maybe 225 pounds," Germaine Mordarsky, 82, said in a phone interview from her home in Bloomfield, Conn.

Her son fell Saturday from the Superman Ride of Steel roller coaster at Six Flags New England in Agawam, Mass., about 90 miles west of Boston, park officials said.

Park officials said Mordarsky was able to board the roller coaster by himself, according to broadcast reports Sunday. The park, under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, must allow disabled people on rides if they can get in the rides by themselves, the officials said.

Christine Cole, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts public safety office, said state inspectors examined the ride after the accident and planned to issue a report in the "very near future." She said no timetable was set for the report.

Cole said the ride would remain closed until the park provided information that state safety officials requested, though she did not specify what that information was.

Mary Ann Burns, a park spokeswoman, said Six Flags was cooperating with the investigation. "We're going to just wait and see what they conclude," she said.

Witnesses described Mordarsky coming out of his harness as the ride hit a curve, spinning through the air and hitting a rail before falling down on the ground.