Grandmother who suffered crushed spine on Harry Potter ride awarded $7.25 million in damages
The Arizona grandmother who suffered a crushed spine and other injuries that left her unable to use the bathroom independently after falling while she was exiting a Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2022 has been awarded $7.25 million in damages.
Pamela Morrison, 74, from Arizona, had been visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with her grandson when she was asked to step off a ride after her harness failed to secure properly.
However, as she disembarked the ride, she slipped off a moving walkway and fell onto solid ground – an incident that resulted in a catastrophic fracture to her lower back and damage to the muscles around her hip, stated court documents.
'The belt was still moving, and so my foot went on that belt, and then [...] my other foot went onto the stationary floor, and it knocked me off my feet', said Morrison, describing the fall in court documents.
Universal Studios Hollywood's defense team tried to argue Morrison's fall was her own doing, citing surveillance footage that appeared to show the retireee being distracted by her grandson. The jury disagreed and came to the ruling that Morrison was owed significant damages for her suffering – a substantial $7.25 million to be exact.
Morrison's attorney, Taylor Kruse, told the jury her fall had been preventable and caused by a failure of park employees to halt the moving walkway to allow the woman to step off the ride safely.
Kruse insisted, as per the documents, that stopping the belt would have been a reasonable and easy solution, but the park continued to operate the ride at a high capacity – their intended aim being to facilitate 1,800 riders per hour.
According to reports, Kruse concluded that Universal Studios was guilty of prioritizing efficiency over safety.
Ban Choi, a safety expert from the Institute of Risk & Safety Analyses, was crucial to the ruling, according to Lawyer Monthly.
He testified that Universals' ride design posed a significant danger because stepping on and off a moving walkway was challenging and unstable – particularly when landing on stationary ground.
Choi explained: 'Entering and exiting a moving walkway perturbs the gait stability of the walkers, even when entering/exiting in the longitudinal direction of the moving walkway.
'Given that Plaintiff Morrison was walking in the lateral direction of the moving walkway while feeling rushed to get off the moving walkway, her gait instability would have been greater.'
After Morrison experienced the traumatizing fall she was quickly taken to hospital to be treated for her severe injuries. But the damage was long-lasting, and one that came with financial repercussions.
Her mobility had been severely compromised making daily tasks such as going to the bathroom a challenge – issues that required aid and subsequently amassed in significant medical expenses.
The damages were broken down into $250,000 for economic damages, $2 million for past noneconomic damages, such as the mental and physical toll of her injuries, and $5 million for future noneconomic damages.
Morrisons' case has called into question the safety standards being maintained at theme parks in the U.S.
According to USA Today in 2023, the IAAPA, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, estimated the odds of serious injury on a fixed-site ride at an amusement park was 1 in 15.5 million rides taken.
The likelihood of sustaining injuries in a motoring incident remains significantly higher, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which revealed in its latest report that roughly 40,9901 people died on America's roads in 2023. However, they insisted these numbers were declining.
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