Roller Coaster

The roller-coaster at Clementon Amusement Park derailed yesterday afternoon and struck the edge of an adjacent building, injuring three riders, police said. The three riders were in the front row of the first of three cars when the ride, known as the Jackrabbit, pulled in for what was supposed to be the end of a run about 4:15 p.m., said Police Chief Robert Getz. The brakes to stop the cars are applied manually by an employee who stands beside the track and pulls a lever. However, Getz said, the brakes were not applied in time, causing the cars to speed into a curve and derail.

For Bill Clinton, hazard is a way of life. The chart of his political fortunes looks like the Rocky Mountains. Every time you think his goose is cooked, he recovers. Last week, he entered another stumblebum phase. As David Maraniss pointed out in his biography of the president, First in His Class, Clinton always has lived his life on the edge. Rarely can he maintain a comfortable cruising speed. But he is remarkably adept at getting himself back on track after a crash. Given the pattern of Clinton's life, it was predictable that a period of favorable press clippings and landslide re-election polls would presage another downhill run on the roller coaster.

If their stomachs hold and the helicopters are on time, four Pennsylvania men this week will ride 72 roller coasters in four states in 24 hours. A Guinness record. An eager nation asks: Why? Phil Guarno, the group's leader, explains: "I'm a roller-coaster freak, but I'm more of a freak to raise money for Children's Miracle Network. " The attempt at the record - which now stands, a bit woozy, at 40 - aims to raise $50,000 for the program at Hershey Medical Center, he says. Five years ago, Guarno's daughter, Melissa, was diagnosed at age 3 with cancer.

There have been times, Ed Snider admits, when he lay in bed at night and considered dumping the whole thing. Sell his beloved Flyers. Forget this infernal arena. Go back to California and frolic on the Santa Barbara beach with his wife and two youngest children. Leave it all behind. And? "Well, I can't do that," he said. "If I had known a few years ago what I know now, I probably would have decided to forget it all. But I'm a person who doesn't like to fail. I've gone this far already, why get off now?"

A foot dangling from a North Wildwood roller coaster became the unlikely weapon of death for a maintenance worker yesterday. The 36-year-old man, whom police would not identify, was killed when the foot of a rider on the "Great Noreaster" on Morey's Pier at 25th Street and the Boardwalk struck him in the head as he was picking up trash at 1:24 p.m. The worker was in a fenced-in area where the ride comes close to the ground. He was not supposed to be in there, said Detective Lt. George Greenland of the North Wildwood police.

Update: Prince Harry has ended his short visit to the Shore with Gov. Christie and flown to New York for the next stop on his tour. During his visit, the prince walked on the Seaside Heights Boardwalk with the governor, who presented the royal guest with one of his trademark fleece jackets. SEASIDE HEIGHTS - Prince Harry, as it turns out, will be among the final tourists to take in the sobering sight of the Jet Star roller coaster in the Atlantic Ocean that has defined Hurricane Sandy on the Jersey Shore.

Officials in New Jersey were investigating yesterday why a young woman who fell to her death Tuesday from a roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park was not seated beneath a safety bar that apparently had been locked into place. Karen Anne Marie Brown, 19, of Chester, Pa., was trying to squeeze under the metal shoulder harness of the Lightnin' Loops ride when she was cast over the front of the car, said Michael Murray, a spokesman for the Ocean County prosecutor.

Kingda Ka, the 456-foot-tall roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure, will be out of service for at least several weeks, a spokeswoman said yesterday. The new coaster malfunctioned during a routine test June 8, Kristin Siebeneicher said, and the Ocean County park is waiting for custom parts to be manufactured and installed. Six Flags representatives say Kingda Ka - at 45 stories high and a top speed of 128 m.p.h. - is the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster, surpassing Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

The failure of ride operators at the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park to ensure that a young Chester woman was behind her safety bar contributed to her fatal fall from a roller coaster June 17, state officials said yesterday. The New Jersey Department of Labor, which is examining details of the death of Karen Anne Marie Brown, 19, announced that the operators had not followed the park's safety guidelines. Witnesses have said that Brown was struggling to get under the safety bar of the Lightnin' Loops roller coaster when she was thrown from the car, the last of a line of six, where she was riding with her boyfriend.

Great Adventure, the Jackson Township, N.J., amusement park where a young woman died yesterday in a fall from a roller-coaster, has been plagued by numerous serious accidents and outbreaks of violence over the past decade. The most tragic accident occurred in May 1984, when eight teen-agers were burned to death in a fire that consumed the park's Haunted Castle. Authorities blamed the tragedy on a youth who brushed a burning cigarette lighter against a foam-padded wall in a dark corridor.