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  3. Every year, new roller coasters are built that are bigger, faster, and wilde

Every year, new roller coasters are built that are bigger, faster, and wilde

游客2024-08-05  9
问题     Every year, new roller coasters are built that are bigger, faster, and wilder than ever. Tower rides are dropping us farther. Flat rides are spinning us with unimaginable new twists. It all seemed like good clean fun until June 2, 2001. A 28-year-old woman was found unconscious after a three-minute ride on the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. Paramedics rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The Los Angeles County coroner attributed her death to a pre-existing condition. The woman had a brain aneurysm that could have broken at any time.
    Rather than calm people, the coroner’s ruling created a controversy that may continue for years to come. The death was one of fifteen fatalities or serious brain injuries that had occurred over the prior ten years among otherwise healthy people who had just taken thrill rides.
    By the tens of thousands, children and adults line up for thrill rides in amusement parks a-round the world. These rides are designed to provide the extreme physical sensations you just don’t get walking down the street. To find out whether riders need to be as fit as jet pilots to handle the thrills, popular mechanics asked one of the people best qualified to answer, Captain David L. Steinhister. He is a flight surgeon for the U. S. Air Force Thunderbirds. " We fly visiting media representatives, who are everyday people, in our jets and subject them to g-forces in excess of those found on roller coasters. We have not had any instances of brain trauma," Steinhister said. "As flier, we train to handle and tolerate the heavy g-forces, as high as nine g’s. Our visitors will experience sustained g-forces of more than twice the forces found on a roller coaster with no lasting ill effect. " But Steinhister adds that they always screen these people prior to flights to be sure they’re healthy.
    Would Air Force-style preflight medical screening have saved any of those who died soon after coaster rides? That will remain a matter of speculation, but it does raise the question of whether more regulations are needed on thrill rides. The amusement industry doesn’t think so, and the scientific evidence that exists appears to concur.
    The latest evidence to support the amusement industry’s position appeared in the October 2002 issue of the Journal of Neurotrauma. University of Pennsylvania scientists Dr. Douglas H. Smith and David F. Meaney coauthored the article, " G-force, Roller Coaster and Brain Trauma: On the Wrong Track?" Smith is a brain trauma researcher who studies the effects of automobile crashes. Meaney is a bioengineer who studies brain trauma.
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    "According to our data," says Smith, "it’s unlikely that amusement rides cause brain injuries. " The team took g-force data from three high-g-force roller coasters and input the data into a mathematical model for head accelerations. They then compared the results to known thresholds for various types of head injuries. They found that the high-est head accelerations from roller coaster rides were far below the minimum thresholds for other types of injuries.
    U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission(CPSC)statistics support Smith and Meaney’s results. While injuries and occasional fatalities do occur, they are primarily a result of a ride malfunction or from rider horseplay.
    Statistically, amusement parks are still one of the safest places to have fun. According to the most recent data provided by the CPSC and the National Sporting Goods Association, in the year 2000 there were far fewer emergency room treated injuries per 1000 visits at amusement parks than there were for many other recreational activities. In that year, the CPSC estimates, there were 6, 594 emergency room-treated injuries related to amusement park rides. Most of those were minor. In comparison, each year an estimated 20,000 people are treated for injuries sustained at music concerts. And about 200,000 school children visit emergency rooms for injuries sustained on a playground.
    The low incidence of injury on rides is credited largely to one organization. Since 1978, the American Society for Testing and Materials(ASTW)has worked with numerous members of the U. S. amusement industry to draft standards and regulations for rider safety. The manufacturers and the ASTM also obtain and analyze data on g-force. They use this data to revise the design and construction of rides.
    One important aspect of their work has to do with the relationship between g-force and the height and speed of the coasters. The surprising fact is that there is no relationship. G-forces are created by how tightly one changes direction while in motion. When a roller coaster train goes faster, it also goes through a larger radius turn in order to maintain the same g-force as a slower train rolling through a tighter curve. And so, even though advances in technology have led to faster and more thrilling rides, g-force levels on roller coasters have not changed much in the past two to three decades. Today’s machines also benefit from the use of computer programs that automatically calculate g-force along every section of the ride. [br] What caused the death of the woman at Six Flags Magic Mountain?
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答案 A brain aneurysm that could have broken at any time．
解析 (由第一段最后一句话“The woman had a brain aneurysm that could have broken at any time”可知，验尸官将该女士的死因归于已有的疾病，她脑袋里面长了一个随时都有可能破裂的脑动脉瘤。故此句可为答案。)
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