Callahan & Blaine

A worker whose job it was to clean the It’s a Small World ride at Euro Disney died in a tragic accident at work while cleaning one of the ride’s boats. The ride was inadvertently turned on while he was cleaning, and the worker became trapped under one of the boats. The fifty-three year old male employee was rescued by fellow workers and transported to a hospital via helicopter where he later died of his injuries.

An inquiry into the accident is underway, and the ride is closed until the investigation is complete. The victim worked for a company sub-contracted to do the cleaning at Euro Disney, located just east of Paris, France.

The California-based theme park has been host to several employee fatalities over the years. In an eerily similar 1999 accident, a custodian was killed at Disney World while cleaning a Skyway gondola platform. The ride was accidentally turned on and the man grabbed a gondola in attempt to save his life, but lost his grip and fell 40 feet to his death.

Other incidents include an employee who died in 2007 from head injuries as a result of falling onto the tracks of Primeval Whirl at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and a 2004 accident where a Disney World employee dressed as Pluto was killed by a parade float while “backstage”. The injuries and deaths go back decades: In 1974 a teenage employee was crushed by a rotating wall at America Sings at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Callahan & Blaine, California’s premier litigation firm, is one of the leading catastrophic injury firms in the state of California. In fact, in the last five years alone our lawyers have obtained over $1.2 billion in verdicts and settlements, including a $7 million settlement for a cyclist who was left with a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a newspaper delivery truck, and a $7.25 million settlement in a case when a man was run over trying to board a city bus in Orange County, California.

Our success in litigating and negotiating personal injury cases comes from our uncommon approach; we handle each personal injury case as though it were a complex business litigation case, attacking it from every angle possible. While our firm is located in Orange County, California, we handle serious personal injury, wrongful death and product liability cases nationwide.

If you or someone you know has suffered a catastrophic injury or died as the result of an accident, please contact our California law firm for expert legal counsel.