Roller coasters account for about half of amusement park deaths, followed by water thrill rides at 25 percent, according to Insure.com. The remaining 25 percent is spread out among other park venues.
Though tame by today's standards, the original Ferris wheel, built in 1893 for the Chicago World's Fair was a scary ride. At 284 foot tall, when it was turned on for the first time, with riders, bolts came undone and fell to the ground. No one was injured.
Action Park in Vernon, N.J., which closed in 1996, had a water slide called the Cannonball Loop. It looped in a perfect circle, even though roller coaster engineers had already found that this type of design was too dangerous.
Action Park had another notorious ride, the Alpine Slide. Riders would take a ski-lift to the top of the hill and then ride down on hard-to-control, single-person sleds. Between 1984 and 1985, more than 24 head injuries and a dozen fractures occurred. One person died in 1980.
At the Middlemoor Water Park in the United Kingdom, a medieval style catapult would fling riders into a net 75 feet away. A 19-year-old student was killed in 2002 when he missed the net.
