Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Florida Man Killed on Roller Coaster

Transcript

Florida Man Killed on Roller Coaster · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you're strapping yourself into this
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: multi-million dollar machine, right?
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: You pull down that heavy shoulder harness and you're just
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: sitting there waiting for the ride operator to walk by.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You hear that heavy metallic click. You see the little
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: safety indicator light flip to green.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And in that exact moment, you are completely handing over
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: your life to a computer.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You just assume that because the light is green,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the machine knows you're secure. Yeah. But what if that
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: computer only knows that the metal is locked? Like it
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: has absolutely no idea that the human body sitting inside
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it is physically incapable of surviving the ride. Wow. Yeah.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: That is the terrifying part.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It is. And today we are looking at this massive
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: fatal blind spot in what is honestly supposed to be
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the safest place on Earth to feel completely terrified.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: We're basically dissecting a highly engineered illusion here because the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: entire business model of a modern theme park relies on
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: this unwritten contract with the public.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: The social contract. Right.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, we only enjoy a 60 mile per
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: hour zero gravity drop because our brains are fundamentally convinced
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: that the harness is infallible.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We trust the engineering implicitly.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. The danger is a simulation, but the
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: safety is supposed to be absolute. And when that contract
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: breaks down, not because a wheel falls off, but because
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the system itself is rigidly blind to human variance. I mean,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the results are just catastrophic.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And that is the exact nightmare we are unpacking today.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: We're looking at a tragedy that unfolded in the newly
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: opened Epic Universe in Orlando, Florida. This was September 17th, 2025.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Just a few months after the park opened, right?
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. A 32-year-old man named Kevin Rodriguez Zavala boarded
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: this brand new state-of-the-art roller coaster called the Stardust Racers.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And he didn't survive it.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: It's just so incredibly tragic.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It really is. We've gathered a massive stack of primary
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: sources pulled from the Law and Crime Network for this
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: deep dive.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Lots of heavy reading for this one.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. We are going to be parsing through raw
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: body cam footage from first responders, highly detailed police incident reports,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the medical examiner's findings, and all the subsequent legal shock
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: waves that followed.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: And we really need to state right at the top
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: what makes this specific incident so chilling to the investigators.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: We are not looking at a cinematic... catastrophic structural failure here.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Like the track didn't break?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: No, the machine did not break. According to multiple rigorous
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: state and internal investigations, the Stardust Racer's roller coaster functioned flawlessly.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Because that sentence alone feels like a massive contradiction.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, how does a ride function flawlessly while still
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: resulting in a fatal catastrophe? So our mission today is
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to look way beyond those initial news headlines.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Right, because the headlines just give you the shock value.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We are going to explore the intersection of mechanical compliance,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: legal liability, and human tragedy. But to figure out how
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: this actually happened, we have to start with the environment
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and the individual.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to set the scene.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: So Epic Universe had just opened in May of 2025.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: It is this massive, sprawling, highly anticipated park. And Kevin
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: was there for a very specific happy reason. Yeah.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: He was celebrating his 32nd birthday.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Birthday trip. Right.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: And for a little context here, Kevin was a video
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: game designer. He was born with a condition called spinal
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: cord atrophy.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Which affects his mobility.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Yes. So this is a condition that basically results in
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the progressive loss of motor neurons, which control muscle movement.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Because of this, Kevin used a wheelchair for his day-to-day mobility.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: However, the background provided by his family paints this picture
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: of a man who lived a highly active, fiercely independent lifestyle.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Right. I read that he was a massive roller coaster enthusiast.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Like this wasn't someone who just accidentally wandered onto a
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: thrill ride without understanding what it was.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: He went to theme parks all the time with his family.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: He knew his own body. He knew the physical demands
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of these environments. And he had a really long history
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: of successfully navigating them.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Which is a crucial baseline for you, the listener, to
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: keep in mind as we analyze the legal arguments later on.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Kevin was a seasoned rider.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: He wasn't a novice.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Not at all. But for this specific trip, it wasn't
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the usual big family outing. His girlfriend of 10 years, Havel,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: had recently secured a job working at Epic Universe.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So she worked there.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And as a perk, she received two new hire tickets.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So she used them to take Kevin to the park,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: just the two of them, for an intimate birthday celebration.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Eventually, as the sun goes down, their evening leads them
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to the Stardust Racers. And I really want you to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: picture the scale of this machine because we aren't talking
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: about a gentle scenic track here.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: No, this is an absolute monster of a ride.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: It's an extreme coaster. It stands over 130 feet tall.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: The ride vehicles launch at top speeds of 62 miles
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: per hour.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: That's incredibly fast for a coaster.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It is. And the track design is just relentless. It
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: incorporates sudden acceleration, steep vertical climbs. severe tilting and inversions,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: meaning it literally flips you completely upside down. And then
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: that's followed by these massive near vertical drops.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And to understand the biomechanics of what is about to happen,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: we really have to talk about G-forces.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Right. The physics of it all.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When you ride a coaster like this, your body
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: is subjected to just a violent symphony of physics. You
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: have positive G-forces, which are pushing you deep down into
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: your seat during a climb.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Or a loop. Like that feeling of being squished?
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that heavy feeling. But more importantly for this case,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: you have negative g-forces.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So when a coaster crests a 130-foot hill and suddenly plummets,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: your body wants to keep moving upward due to inertia.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Right, your stomach drops.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is what coaster enthusiasts call airtime. The negative
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: g-forces are literally trying to lift you out of the vehicle.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: The only thing tethering you to the earth is the
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: lap bar and your own bodily resistance.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Let me stop you there because the surveillance footage timeline
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: of this ride is almost impossible to process. It is
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: so fast.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: It really is a blur.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: The investigators pull the central control room video. So at 8.54 p.m.,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the ride staff starts helping Kevin get seated. At 8.56 p.m.,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the ride departs the loading dock. Okay, so they're off. Right.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And at 8.56... And 57 seconds, the cameras catch the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: ride at the launch point. And the police report explicitly
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: notes that Kevin appears perfectly engaged and well.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: He looks totally fine.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: He looks completely fine. But then at 58 and 28 seconds,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: so just a minute and a half later, the right
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: cart hits the final brake run. The camera angle is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: too far away to see him clearly at that point.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Right. They couldn't zoom in.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But moments later, the cart pulls into the station
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and Kevin is unresponsive.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: 90 seconds. That is the entire window where a birthday
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: celebration became a fatal event.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the massive disconnect between the macroscopic
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: surveillance of the system and the microscopic reality of the rider.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by macroscopic surveillance?
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: So the central computers are tracking the vehicle's telemetry down
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: to the millimeter. They know exactly how fast the wheels
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: are spinning, the exact temperature of the brake fins, the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: precise location of the cart on the track.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. So the computer knows everything about the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: metal and the machinery.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But that telemetry completely missed the human catastrophe unfolding
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: in the back row. The system is designed to monitor
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the integrity of the machine, not the biological integrity of
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: the passenger.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And for that human reality, we really have to look
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: at the testimony of his girlfriend, Haval, who is sitting
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: right next to him. And her account to the detectives
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: is just gut-wrenching.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It's horrific to read.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It really is. She said that from the moment Kevin
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: transferred into the seat, something just felt off. She noted
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that he was sitting, quote, too low, unquote.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Too low, right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she explicitly told investigators that he didn't have the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: support on his legs to keep himself in place. But
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the ride dispatches anyway.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Because the light was green.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Right. So they hit that first massive drop. And she
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: says Kevin lifted up out of his seat. He physically
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: bent forward, lifted up. and his head slammed violently into
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the metal bar at the front of the cart.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: What Haval is describing there is a catastrophic failure of
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the anchoring system, but again, not a mechanical failure.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Right, the bar didn't break. No.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: When those negative g-forces hit during the drop, a rider
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: with typical lower body function will instinctively push their feet
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: into the floorboard.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Like you brace yourself without even thinking about it.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You engage your leg muscles and your core to
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: brace your upper body against the lap bar. It is
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a highly active physical resistance to the forces of physics.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: But Kevin's spinal cord atrophy meant he couldn't do that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Precisely. His body could not provide that active muscular resistance.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Without the ability to plant his feet and flex his core,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: his upper body essentially became a projectile within the confines
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: of his seat when the negative g-forces took over.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Wow. Haval told police. She saw him hit his head,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and she panicked. She immediately tried to grab him. She
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: reached over trying to pull him back against the seat
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: using all her strength to just hold him down.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine the panic.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: It's unimaginable. But then they hit the second drop and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the forces are just too massive. The exact same thing happens.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: He's thrown upward and his head impacts the metal again.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: She thinks there was a third drop where he hit
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: his head yet again.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I want you to just put yourself in her position
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: for a second. The ride is roaring. It's 62 miles
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: per hour. The wind is deafening. You are flipping upside down.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: You're completely disoriented.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She is screaming for help. Her glasses fly off
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: her face. She is physically ripping his shirt, trying desperately
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to keep him pinned down and conscious. And there is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing she can do.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: The isolation is absolute.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: It's like being strapped into a rocket ship. Once those
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: thrusters fire and you clear the launch pad, you are
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: entirely cut off from the rest of the world.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: You're just a passenger.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You cannot wave down a ride operator. You cannot
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: pull an emergency brake cord. You're a captive audience to
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a machine that is programmed to run its course no
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: matter what is happening to the fragile human cargo inside it.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: And that isolation doesn't end when the ride stops. The
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: breakdown in communication at these massive theme parks during an
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: emergency is a critical part of this tragedy.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Because when the train finally returned to the station, Havel
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: is obviously screaming for medical help. But let's look at
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: how that distress signal actually filters out to the outside world.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Right. We have the body cam footage from the Orange
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff's deputies. And the paramedics who responded. And the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: initial confusion is honestly staggering.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: It's a total mess.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: It really is. When the 911 call goes out from
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the park's central dispatch, the notes are incredibly vague. A
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: deputy is recorded on his body cam literally saying that
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: based on the dispatch, they thought they were responding to a, quote,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: slip and fall.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: A slip and fall. Unbelievable.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Someone thought a guest just needed a Band-Aid. Another
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: officer speculated it might be an industrial accident, like a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: maintenance worker twisting an ankle.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: They were just completely unprepared.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: They had absolutely no idea they were walking into a
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: massive life-or-death trauma scene.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Which really highlights a known vulnerability in mega-resort emergency protocols.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: The information has to pass from a terrified teenager running
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the ride platform to a park manager... to a centralized
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: park dispatch, to the county 911 operators, and finally to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the field units.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: It's like a deadly game of telephone.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By the time the paramedics actually step onto that platform,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: the situation is beyond critical.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: The body cam footage is just pure visceral chaos. You
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: hear the EMTs shouting medical jargon, moving with this frantic,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: terrifying urgency. You hear one shout, quote, grab the BBM.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Right. A BBM is a bag valve mask.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Okay. What does that look like?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: It's that handheld device paramedics use to manually pump oxygen
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: into a patient's lungs. You know, the plastic mask with
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the squishy bag attached to it?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I've seen those on medical shows.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they use it when someone is no longer breathing
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: effectively on their own. So hearing them call for a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: BBM indicates that Kevin was already in respiratory failure or
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: full cardiac arrest by the time they reached him.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Wow. Then you hear another medic yell, quote, secure the I.O.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And I actually had to look this up because the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: way he said it, sounded so intense.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. An IO, or interosseous infusion, is one of the
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: most drastic measures a paramedic can take in the field. Really?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Why is it so drastic?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Well, when a human body undergoes massive trauma and goes
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: into shock, the blood pressure plummets, right?
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: And when that happens, the peripheral veins in the arms
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: and legs essentially collapse. They just flatten out, making it
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: completely impossible to start a standard IV line.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So they can't get fluids normally. Exactly. Exactly.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So when a medic says secure the I.O., they are
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: taking a specialized medical drill and driving a needle directly
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: into the bone marrow.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. Into the bone.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Yes. Usually the tibia in the leg or the humerus
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: in the shoulder. Because bone marrow contains this rich network
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: of blood vessels that don't collapse during shock. So it
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: allows them to push lifesaving fluids and medications directly into
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the central circulation instantly.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: That paints such a stark picture of how desperate the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: situation was on that platform. They also start shouting about
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: setting up a Lucas device. What is that?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: The Lucas device is an automated chest compression machine.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Like a robot for CPR?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yeah. Paramedics strap it around the patient's chest, and
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: a piston mechanically delivers perfectly timed deep compressions.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I imagine human CPR gets tiring really fast.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It does. Human CPR is exhausting, and the depth of
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: compressions varies as the medic gets tired. The Lucas machine
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't get tired. It frees up the paramedic's hands to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: push drugs through that IO line we talked about and
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: manage the airway with the BBM.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: So they were doing everything they possibly could.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: They were throwing the absolute maximum level of advanced life
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: support at this young man right there on the roller
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: coaster platform.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And while this frantic medical fight is happening... the police
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: officers are stepping back and trying to just make sense
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of the scene.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: They have to secure the area.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Right, and the body cam catches the deputies looking at
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the specific seat Kevin was in. It is absolutely covered
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in blood. There is this grim, highly disturbing moment where
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the officers are debating whether the biological material they're seeing
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: on the fiberglass is brain matter or vomit.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: God, that is so grim.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: That is the sheer violence of the impact we are
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: talking about here. And all the while, Haval is sitting
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: there just a few yards away, having just survived this
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: unimaginable trauma, being gently questioned by deputies about what just happened.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating sequence, but it leaves us with
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: a glaring, highly technical mystery.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Right. The mechanics of it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We established that Kevin was a seasoned rider. He
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: knew what a coaster entailed. And we established that he
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: met the park's requirements to get on that ride.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: He passed the tests. Right.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So how did the restraint system fail so completely to
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: protect him? To understand that, we really have to rewind
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: the clock to the exact moments before the ride departed.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: We have to look at the loading phase and dissect
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: the concept of the green light. Right.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Because this is the moment where this story shifts from
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a tragic, chaotic medical emergency into a very thorny, complex
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: debate about rules, mechanical thresholds, and human physiology.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: It becomes a systems failure issue.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly. According to the police incident report, the process of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: getting Kevin into the ride vehicle was incredibly standard.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Totally routine.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The park employees noted that Kevin transferred from his
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: wheelchair to a park, provided a transfer device, and then
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: from that device directly into the actual coaster seat. Okay.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And the employee told investigators, quote, it was a very
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: normal transfer, and he met all ride requirements. He moved easily.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Let's break down why that specific detail matters so much
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: to the park's liability.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Please do.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Theme parks have highly standardized requirements regarding mobility and transfers.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Because of privacy laws and just practicality, they cannot ask
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: a guest for their medical records, right? Right.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: You can't just interrogate someone about their disability at the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: front of the line.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So instead, they rely on physical capability tests. The
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: ability to transfer oneself from a wheelchair to a ride
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: vehicle usually requires a significant amount of upper body strength
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: and coordination.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Which Kevin clearly had.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Right. When the ride attendants watched Kevin execute a normal transfer...
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: it signaled to them that he possessed the necessary physical
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: strength to handle the ride. He passed the visual and
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: procedural test designed by the park's safety engineers.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, so he passes the visual test, and he is
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: in the seat. Then comes the most important part of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the entire process, which is securing the lap bar.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: The physical restraint.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Yes. The investigators got a sworn detailed statement from the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: specific teenage employee who secured Kevenger's restraint.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Must have been terrifying for that kid, too.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can't imagine the guilt even if he followed
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the rules. And this employee explained that the seats on
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Stardust Racers have a mechanical indicator system right on the side.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: It's a visual cue for the operator.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Like a little light panel.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, basically. If the lap bar is locked down far
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: enough into a, quote, safe position, a small indicator notch
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: sits in a green zone. But if the bar haven't
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: clicked down far enough to be deemed safe by the computer,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the notch leans into a red zone.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: It is a purely binary mechanical threshold.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Red or green? Yes.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Red means the central computer will literally prevent the ride
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: from dispatching. It physically won't go. Green means the computer
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: will allow the sequence to begin.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It takes the human error out of it.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: That's the goal. Theme parks design these systems to remove
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: subjective guesswork from the equation. They don't want a 19-year-old
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: seasonal employee having to make a complex medical judgment call
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: about human anatomy or whether someone, quote, looks secure. They
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: just train them to look at the indicator. Green means go.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's walk through the actual moment. Kevin is
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: sitting upright. The employee pulls the lap bar down over
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: his waist. But initially, it doesn't meet the minimum requirement.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: It's in the red.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Right. The indicator notch is leaning into the red. It
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: was incredibly close, the report says, but it wasn't in
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the green. Wow. Now, if I'm listening to this, I'm thinking, well,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: stop right there. If it's red and Hevelal sees, he
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is sitting, quote, too low. Why on earth does the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: operator keep going? Isn't that gross negligence to push it further?
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: It feels like it instinctively does.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It feels like they forced it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: But we have to look at the standard operating procedures.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: The employee didn't just aggressively shove the bar down without asking.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: They followed their training perfectly.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Well, the employee asked Kevin, quote, are you comfortable if
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I push down a little bit just to make sure
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: your lap bar accommodates you? And Kevin explicitly said yes.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: So consent is established.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Procedurally, from a corporate liability standpoint, that is a
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: perfect interaction. The guest is aware of the adjustment and
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: actively agrees to it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the employee gets consent. He uses two hands
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and pushes the lap bar down just a bit further.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: They check the indicator again. And this time, the restraint
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: clicks past the threshold.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It goes green.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: The indicator's in the green. And investigators specifically press this
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: employee on this next point. They asked, did Kevin show
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: any signs of pain? Did he wince? Did he complain?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And what did she say?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: The employee said, absolutely not. He didn't make a noise.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: His face didn't change. He showed zero signs of distress.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Even Havel, who was sitting right there next to him,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: didn't say anything about the bar being too tight. The
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: machine says green. The passenger says he's fine. The operator
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: hits the dispatch button.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we are
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: looking at the fatal flaw in mass scale engineering.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Well, standard operating procedures are designed for a standard statistically
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: average body. The sensor in that seat registered that the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: lap bar was locked. It hit the physical notch required
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: to trigger the green light.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: But it was just a piece of metal hitting a switch.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. What the sensor could not measure and what the
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: teenage operator could not possibly know is was the internal
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: physiological makeup of the man sitting behind the bar.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Right. I keep thinking about the analogy of a seatbelt
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in a car.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: That's a great comparison.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: No, you get in, you pull the seatbelt across your chest,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: you plug it in, and you hear that loud, reassuring click.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: The warning chime stops, the little dashboard light turns off.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: The car is happy.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Right. The car's computer is telling you that you are
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: safe to drive. But just because the seatbelt clicked into
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the buckle doesn't mean it is properly securing what's actually
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in the seat.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Right. It just knows the circuit is closed.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly. If you put a heavy watermelon on the driver's
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: seat and buckle the belt over it, the car will say,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: green light, safe to drive. But the moment you slam
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: on the brakes, that watermelon is going to slide right
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: under the belt and smash into the dashboard.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the belt didn't hold it at all.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Because the sensor only knows that the metal tongue is
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: in the metal buckle. It has absolutely no capacity to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: understand the physical properties of the object it is supposed
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: to be restraining.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: That is the exact mechanical trap that occurred here. The
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: green indicator light on the Stardust Racers did not mean
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Kevin Rodriguez-Avala is securely anchored and physiologically capable of withstanding
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: 62 mph inversions. Right.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It didn't mean he was safe.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: No, the green light simply meant the lap bar has
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: reached mechanical position X. It is a profound failure of
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: translation between mechanical engineering and human biology.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: The machine functioned perfectly. The human interface failed.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: But wait, walk me through the legal implications of that.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Because if the employee did exactly what they were trained
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: to do, I mean, they communicated clearly, got verbal consent,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: checked the mechanical indicators, verified there was no pain. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: if the machine worked exactly as it was designed and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: programmed to work, who is actually at fault when a
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: man dies?
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: That is the million dollar question.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Right. Like if nobody broke the rules, how is there
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: a victim?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: That question is what shifts this entire narrative from a
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: tragic medical emergency into an incredibly thorny legal battlefield.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Because everyone wants someone to blame. Of course.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And the immediate aftermath of Kevin's death was this massive
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: flurry of high level investigations by multiple state and local agencies.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And their conclusions were deeply, deeply frustrating to Kevin's family.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Let's look at those investigations because they are exhaustive. First,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you had the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: They're the ones who oversee the rides.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, they are the main regulatory body for amusement park
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: rides in the state. They conducted an exhaustive inspection of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the Stardust Racers. You also had Universal Resorts' own internal
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: safety and engineering teams tearing the ride apart looking for
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: a flaw.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Looking for a broken part or a glitch.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Right. And the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper actually reported the final
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: official findings. And they concluded that the ride systems functioned
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: exactly as intended.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: No mechanical failure at all? None.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The mechanical equipment was entirely intact. There was no computer glitch,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: no broken latch, no metal fatigue. And they confirmed the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: park employees followed all proper procedures to the letter.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Then you transition to the medical and law enforcement investigations,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: which is another hurdle for the family. Yeah.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Dr. Joshua Stephanie, who was the chief medical examiner for
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Orange and Osceola counties, conducted the autopsy. The medical findings
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: were very clear. He ruled the cause of death as
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: multiple blunt impact injuries.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Which matches Havel's account of him hitting his head.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But, crucially, for legal purposes, he ruled the manner
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of death as an accident. An accident. Yes, an accident.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And following that medical determination, the Orange County Sheriff's Office
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: officially closed their criminal investigation. They deemed it an accidental
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: death based on the totality of the circumstances, the video surveillance...
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and the strict adherence to park protocols.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Which effectively creates a massive impenetrable fortress around Universal. It
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: brings up this concept that theme parks plaster everywhere, which
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: is assumption of risk.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Right. You see those signs everywhere. Oh, yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: If you walk up to any extreme ride anywhere in
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: the world, you are bombarded with warning signs. The police
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: incident report specifically documented the signage at the entrance to
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Stardust Racers.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: What did they say?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: These signs explicitly warn guests about sudden and dramatic acceleration
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: and steep climbing, severe tilting, inversions and massive drops. They
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: also have highly specific guidelines stating that guests using wheelchairs
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: must transfer to the ride vehicle seating exactly as Kevin did.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: OK, but how does a sign protect a park from
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a fatality?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Well, assumption of risk is a foundational doctrine in personal
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: injury and tort law.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: OK, let's do a quick law school breakdown here.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. It essentially dictates that if a plaintiff knowingly,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: voluntarily and intelligently engages in a dangerous activity, They cannot
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: successfully sue the defendant if they are injured by the
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: inherent advertised risks of that specific activity. Wow.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: But in the legal world, to truly understand how a
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: park defends itself, we really have to break this down
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: into primary and secondary assumption of risk.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I'm honestly having a hard time wrapping my head around
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: how a park can just wave away at death. So
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: what is the difference between primary and secondary? Okay.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: So primary assumption of risk means the guest knowingly accepts
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: the inherent obvious dangers that make the activity what it is.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Like the speed.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When you get on a roller coaster, the entire
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: point of the ride is speed, violent directional changes, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: intense physical forces. You accept that reality.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: You want the thrill. Right.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: You are legally waiving your right to sue if those
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: normal advertised forces simply jostle you, cause motion sickness, or
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: strain a muscle. The park uses those massive warning signs
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: at the entrance to establish this baseline.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: They're saying, we told you so.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They are legally declaring, quote, We told you this
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: machine is violently intense. You read the sign and you
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: chose to board anyway.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: But surely that doesn't give a corporation a free pass
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to do whatever they want, right? Like they can't put
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: up a sign and say, well, if the wheels fall off,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it's your fault.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. And that is exactly where secondary assumption
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: of risk comes in.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Could you explain that?
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: A guest does not assume the risk of the park's negligence.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: You accept that the coaster is fast, but you do
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: not accept that the lap bar might inexplicably unlatch mid-inversion.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Right, that's not part of the thrill.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You do not assume the risk of negligent maintenance
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: by the mechanics, operational errors by the teenage staff, or
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: fatal design defects by the engineers.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So if they mess up, they are liable. Yes.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: If the park fails in its fundamental duty to provide
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: a mechanically sound, properly operated experience, they can absolutely be
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: held liable, regardless of how many warning signs they printed.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: But in Kevin's case, the state regulators and the police...
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Literally just declared that there was no operational error and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: no mechanical defect.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: The lap bar didn't pop open. The teenager followed the checklist.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: So Universal's basically standing behind this fortress saying, we provided
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a flawless machine. We warned him of the extreme physical forces.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: He read the sign.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He assessed his own physical limitations, decided he could
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: handle it, and chose to ride. This is a tragic
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: outcome of his specific pre-existing medical condition, not our negligence.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: That is precisely the legal shield they were deploying. By
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: pointing to the green light and the warning signs, they
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: effectively shifted the ultimate burden of safety onto the writer's
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: own self-assessment.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: It puts it all on Kevin.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The corporate legal argument is that only Kevin truly
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: knew the microscopic realities of his bodily limitations, and he
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: made the autonomous choice to proceed.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? Doesn't that contradict the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: very existence of the green light system?
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Think about signing a medical waiver before you go in
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: for a major surgery, right?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: You sign a dense stack of papers saying you understand
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the risks of anesthesia, you understand the risk of post-op infection,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: you assume the inherent primary risk of having your body
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: cut open.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Right, standard procedure.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: But if you die on the operating table because the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: surgeon decided to use dirty, unsterilized instruments, that waiver means
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. You didn't assume the risk of their gross negligence.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: So in this theme park case, yes, Kevin assumed the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: risk of his spinal cord condition on a fast ride.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: But he also trusted the park's safety system.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: The green light.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Exactly. When that employee asked to push the bar down,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: applied pressure, and the system flashed green, the park was
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: effectively communicating to him, quote, We have successfully accommodated your condition.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: You are mechanically secure.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: They gave him the all clear.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So did he truly assume the risk? Or was he
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: lured into a false sense of security by a multimillion-dollar
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: computer system that claimed it could accommodate him but structurally couldn't?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: That argument, the concept of a false sense of security
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: generated by a defective safety protocol, is the exact crux
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: of what a massive wrongful death lawsuit would have argued.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: It's a systemic failure.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A plaintiff's attorney wouldn't argue that the machine broke.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: They would argue that the design of the restraint system
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: was inherently fatally defective because it allowed a false positive
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: green light for someone of Kevin's body type.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: A false positive? Wow.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: They would argue that the employee training was grossly inadequate
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: because operators weren't taught to recognize when a restraint, despite
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: mechanically clicking green, wasn't actually physically bracing the passenger's mask.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Right. They just look at the light.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. These are deep structural systemic questions that move way
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: beyond just Did the metal latch hold?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And Kevin's family was definitely gearing up to ask those
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: exact systemic questions as loudly as humanly possible.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: They were not going to stay quiet.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: No, they were absolutely not satisfied with the state's accidental
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: death conclusion. They immediately hired Ben Crump, who is arguably
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: one of the most high profile media savvy civil rights
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and personal injury attorneys in the country.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: A very strategic move.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: They called a massive press conference. And what really poured
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: gasoline on this fire was Universal's actions just two weeks
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: after Kevin died.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Right. On October 4th, 2025, exactly a fortnight after this
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: fatal incident, Universal quietly reopened the Stardust Racers to the
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: general public.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And the family was incandescent with rage. Ben Crump stood
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: at that press conference and verbally eviscerated Universal.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: He's very good at what he does.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's brilliant at it. He weaponized their own corporate
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: speak against them. He brought up an internal statement from
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the president of Epic Universe, who had recently told her staff, quote,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: safety is and always will be at the forefront of
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: everything we do.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Ouch!
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Crump threw that right back at the camera, saying
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: those words rang entirely hollow because they reopened the ride
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: without giving the grieving family any concrete answers.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: It just looks so bad for the park.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It really does. He accused the park of reopening the coaster, quote,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: like a thief in the night on a Friday afternoon,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: specifically without letting the family's independent safety experts inspect the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: ride vehicles first.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: They wanted their own engineers to look at the seats.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Right. And he delivered a quote that is just devastating
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: to a family brand. He said, quote, Kevin trusted Universal
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and that trust ended up being a death sentence.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: When you analyze the strategy of a high profile attorney
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: like Ben Crump going up against a massive, well-funded corporation
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: that is hiding behind state regulatory clearances, the playbook is
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: very clear.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: It's a PR war.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Your best, most immediate weapon is the court of
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: public opinion. The family was utilizing media pressure to highlight
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: the perceived callousness of the corporate machine.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: The optics are terrible for Universal.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: They are. They were drawing a stark, uncomfortable contrast between
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: the park's swift return to generating revenue and the family's agonizing,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: unresolved grief.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: And you feel the sheer weight of that grief when
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you read the statement from Kevin's mother, Anna.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: That was incredibly difficult to watch.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: It was. She spoke at the press conference in Spanish.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and had a translator read her words in English. And
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: it is impossible not to feel the physical toll this
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: took on her. She talked about how riding coasters was
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: something they deeply loved doing together. It was a bonding experience.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It made them feel alive and free. She told the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: press that her absolute favorite photo in the world is
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: of the two of them on a roller coaster, smiling
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: with their hands in the air.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: But now she says she can't even look at that
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: photo because it just brings rushing back the violent reality
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of how his life ended.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: It is a profound psychological injury. It fundamentally taints a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: core foundational memory.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It ruins the joy.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the exact environment that brought them immense joy and
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: freedom is now the source of her greatest, most inescapable trauma.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: She looked at the cameras and directly accused the theme
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: park of putting, quote, profit over people. She demanded to
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: know how the ride could possibly be open to teenagers
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and families before their independent experts could even look at
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the lap bars.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: She's asking the questions everyone is thinking.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Right. She said she tosses and turns every single night
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: wondering why the executives don't think her son's life mattered.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And then she delivered this line, quote, Wow. And it
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: is incredibly effective at piercing the corporate veil. It humanizes
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the whole thing.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It forces the public and potential future jurors to
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: look past the cold, mechanical greenlight argument and see the
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: actual human cost of the system's failure.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: It's a brilliant strategy. It is.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: The family and their legal team were very clearly laying
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: the strategic groundwork for a massive, highly public, multi-million dollar
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: wrongful death lawsuit. Ben Crump explicitly stated they were exploring
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: all legal options to hold the park accountable.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: But then the story takes a very sudden turn. Very
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: quiet turn.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just drops off the radar.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Despite all the public outrage, the fiery press conferences,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and the promises of independent engineering investigations, we didn't get
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a drawn-out, years-long public trial.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: No courtroom drama.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: We didn't get executives on the witness stand. Instead, the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: situation resolved in two very distinct, very quiet ways. And
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the first was a sudden change in park policy. Yes.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: When Universal reopened Stardust Racers on that Friday, eagle-eyed theme park,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Journalists and safety observers noticed a very specific unannounced update
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to the Universal Orlando Resort's official guide for safety and accessibility.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: They changed the rules.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: They did. They added a brand new rule specifically applying
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to this one coaster. The new text stated, quote, guests
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: using mobility devices must be able to walk independently.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Let me stop you because that is a massive paradigm shift.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: It changes everything.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Previously, Kevin was perfectly allowed on the ride because the
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: rule was simply that he had to transfer from his
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: wheelchair to the seat using upper body strength and their device.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Right, the normal transfer.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Now, the rule is you must possess the lower body
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: function to walk independently. If this specific rule had been
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: printed on the sign on September 17th, Kevin would have
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: been turned away at the entrance.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: In the legal realm, we refer to a sudden policy
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: change like this following an accident as a, quote, subsequent
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: remedial measure.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: A subsequent remedial measure.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is a fascinating, often misunderstood area of evidence law.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Generally speaking, in a civil trial, a plaintiff's attorney cannot
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: introduce evidence that a company changed its safety rules, fired
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: an employee, or fixed a broken product after an injury
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: occurred to prove that the company was negligent before the injury.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? Why on earth not?
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: It sounds counterintuitive.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I know. If I come over to your house... And
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I fall through a visibly rotting, broken step on your
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: front porch. And the very next day, you hire a
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: carpenter to fix that exact step. Isn't you fixing it
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: absolute proof that you knew it was broken and dangerous?
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Logically, to a normal person, yes, it seems like a
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: glaring admission of guilt. But the law actually strictly forbids
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: using that repair as evidence of negligence in front of
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: a jury.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: That seems so unfair to the victim.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: It feels that way, but the public policy rationale behind
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: this rule is actually quite sound when you dig into it.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, explain it to me.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: The courts want people and massive corporations to fix dangerous
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: conditions immediately. They want the rotting step fixed. They want
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: the theme park rules updated.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm tracking.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: If fixing a hazard could be weaponized against you in
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: court as a legal admission of guilt corporations... would be
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: incentivized to leave dangerous things broken for years during litigation
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: just to protect themselves from lawsuits.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So they would just leave it dangerous.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They would argue, quote, see, we didn't fix it
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: because it wasn't broken. So the law encourages rapid public
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: safety improvements by legally shielding those subsequent repairs from being
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: used as a bludgeon in court.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: OK, that makes a frustrating amount of sense from a
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: utilitarian perspective. You want the hazard Gone more than you
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: want the easy legal win.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. However, even if that new accessibility rule can't be
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: legally introduced in a courtroom to say Universal was negligent
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: in the court of public opinion, a sudden policy change
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: speaks volumes.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Everyone notices.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Right. By suddenly requiring riders to walk independently, Universal is
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: tacitly acknowledging a fatal vulnerability in their previous system.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: They're admitting the lap bar isn't enough.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: They are acknowledging that... relying solely on a guest's upper
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: body transfer strength and a mechanical lap bar is absolutely
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: not sufficient to protect riders who lack lower body muscular stabilization.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: It's a huge admission.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: The PR department will claim it is done out of
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: an abundance of caution, but practically speaking, it is the
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: park closing the precise fatal loophole that cost Kevin his life.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: But there is a really tragic, bitter irony here. The
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: disabled community isn't there.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: It's very bleak.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Kevin deeply loved his independence. He loved theme parks. He
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: was a living advocate for experiencing life fully with a disability.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: And now, as a direct result of his tragic death,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: the park hasn't engineered a safer, more inclusive lap bar.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: No. They haven't redesigned the seat.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: They haven't designed a five-point harness for that coaster. Instead,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: they've instituted a blanket ban. They have drawn a hard
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: exclusionary line that legally prevents anyone who uses a wheelchair
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: from from ever experiencing this multimillion-dollar ride.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: It's completely exclusionary.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: If you're listening to this, you really have to ask,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: is that actual safety innovation, or is it just the easiest,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: cheapest way for a corporation to eliminate a legal gray area?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about how we handle accessibility
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: in extreme environments. The tension here is profound.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: It really is a clash of two worlds. Exactly.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: On one hand, you have the Americans with Disabilities Act,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: which rightfully pushes for maximum inclusion and reasonable accommodations in
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: all public spaces, including theme parks.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: As it should. Right.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Parks spend tens of millions of dollars designing accessible queues,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: specialized transfer devices, and inclusive ride vehicles. But on the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: other hand, you have the absolute unforgiving mathematical laws of physics.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Physics doesn't care about ADA compliance.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Physics doesn't care at all. Extreme thrill rides are engineered
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: based on very specific physiological assumptions about the rider's body.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: They assume a certain center of gravity, bone density, and crucially,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: their muscular ability to actively brace against violent G-forces. Right.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: They assume a, quote, normal body.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. When the social desire for total inclusivity collides with
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the uncompromising... physics of a 62 mile per hour inversion
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: the results as we've seen can be fatal it's a
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: terrible reality designing a dynamic restraint system that can universally
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: accommodate every conceivable permutation of the human body while still
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: operating a high capacity rapidly loading thrill ride might actually
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: be a current engineering impossibility.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: So they just give up and ban people.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Basically, yes. Faced with that impossibility, Parks opt for exclusion
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: under the banner of safety.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Which is a heartbreaking yet physically real conclusion. And this
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: quiet exclusionary policy shift was immediately followed by the second
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: quiet resolution to this story.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: The lawsuit.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Or rather, the lack of one. In December of 2025,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: just a few short months after the tragedy, the tears,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and the fiery press conferences, Ben Crump's law firm released
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: a very brief, highly sanitized statement.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Standard PR move.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It announced that Kevin's family and Universal had reached an, quote,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: amicable resolution. The financial terms, of course, are strictly confidential.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: A sealed settlement.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Yes. No wrongful death lawsuit was ever officially filed in court.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: No public trial will ever take place. The family asked
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the media for privacy to heal. And that was it.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: The reality of confidential settlements is that they are by
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: far the most common conclusion to these types of high
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: profile catastrophic tragedies.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: They just make it go away.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Both sides, the grieving family and the mega corporation, have
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: massive overlapping incentives to settle out of court before a
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: lawsuit even gets past the initial filing stage.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: But walk me through that psychology. If the family was
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: so visibly angry, if the mother felt they put profit
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: over her son's life and they hired the biggest lawyer
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in the country, Why settle so quickly?
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: It seems like giving up, right?
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Don't they want answers on the public record? Don't
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: they want to see executives held accountable?
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Let's analyze the park's perspective first because they usually drive
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the settlement numbers.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Okay. Why does the park want to settle?
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: For a corporation like Universal, a public jury trial is
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: an absolute nightmare scenario. Even if their corporate lawyers feel
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: 100% legally protected by the assumption of WISC doctrine, And
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: the state medical examiner's finding of an accidental death, a trial,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: initiates a phase called discovery.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Discovery, right, where they have to hand over documents.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Discovery is the legal process where the plaintiff's lawyers
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: get a court order to demand every single internal email,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: every preliminary safety report, every discarded memo about ride design,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: and every single debate about lap bar mechanics.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, so they expose all the dirty laundry. Everything.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Everything. They get to put the ride's lead engineers and
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: park executives on the witness stand under oath for hours
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: of grueling questioning.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: That sounds brutal. It is.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Even if Universal ultimately wins the lawsuit on illegal technicality,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the public relations damage of having their internal behind-closed-doors safety
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: debates dragged through the daily news cycle for two years
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: is just insane. incalculable.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It would ruin their brand.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. It is far cheaper both in actual legal fees
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: and to their global brand reputation to offer a massive
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: financial settlement early on and make the negative headlines go
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: away permanently.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: OK, I see why the park wants to write a check.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: They just want the silence. But what about the family?
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Why accept it and drop the fight?
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: For the family, the calculus is brutal but incredibly pragmatic.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Civil litigation takes years.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: It's not a quick process. Not at all.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: It requires the family to actively relive the absolute worst
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: day of their lives over and over again. They have
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: to do it in endless depositions, in pretrial hearings, and
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: eventually in a highly public courtroom.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: That would just be endless trauma. It is.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: They would have to sit in a room and listen
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: to highly paid defense attorneys argue that Kevin's death was
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: ultimately his own fault for choosing to get on the ride.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, that would be sickening to listen to.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: They would have to look at the photos of the
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: bloody seat projected on a screen. And there's absolutely no
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: guarantee they would even win a jury trial given the
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: very real legal shields we discussed earlier regarding the warning signs.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: So the huge gamble.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: A massive gamble. A substantial settlement provides immediate financial compensation. Now, obviously,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: money can never replace Kevin, but it can provide generational
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: security for his family. Or they could fund a charitable
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: legacy in his name.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: It gives them some control back.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Most importantly, it allows them to step out of the
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: blinding media glare of end the adversarial fight, and actually
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: begin the long, quiet process of grieving in private.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: It makes complete logical sense. Yeah. But it just leaves
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: you feeling so fundamentally unresolved.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: It does feel very open-ended.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: The physical machine worked perfectly. The teenage employees followed the
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: rulebook to the letter. The state ruled it a tragic accident.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: The family gets a secret settlement they can never talk about.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: And the park just moves on.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The roller coaster just keeps running, launching a new
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: train every two minutes. just with one new line of
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: text on a warning sign.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: It is a stark, uncomfortable reminder of the friction between
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: human vulnerability and automated systems.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: We've seen how standard operating procedures, which are statistically designed
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: to protect the vast majority of people, can fatally overlook
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: the specific physiological reality of the individual sitting right in
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: front of them.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly. To quickly recap the intense journey we've taken today,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: we started with a beautiful birthday celebration at Epic Universe.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: that rapidly turned into an unimaginable nightmare.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: We went through that terrifying 90-second window.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Right, where a ride functioned perfectly on paper but violently
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: failed the human trapped inside it. We broke down the
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: chilling reality of a mechanical green light that promised safety
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: but was entirely blind to biology.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: And we explored the heavy legal shields.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: The primary and secondary assumption of risk that protect corporations
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: when their machines operate as designed. And we saw how
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: intense public outrage and the threat of litigation was. quickly
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: pivoted into quiet confidential settlements and exclusionary policy changes.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: The overarching lesson here is that when we interact with massive,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: highly engineered environments, we are often placing blind trust in
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: algorithms and mechanical thresholds to do the nuanced job of
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: human judgment.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: And that leaves us with one final thought.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, where are we going with this?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: We've spent this entire hour talking about the physical dangers
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of mechanical rides. G-forces, lap bars, the physical limits of
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the human body against steel.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Right, the real-world stuff.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: But look at where the entertainment industry is heading. Theme
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: parks and tech companies are pouring billions into virtual reality,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: hyper-immersive metaverse environments, and even early-stage neurological simulations. Oh, wow.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the digital frontier.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They are trying to create experiences that bypass our
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: physical bodies entirely and inject the thrill directly into our
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: sensory systems.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: That is a wild thought.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Think about it. If we are currently struggling this much
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to write safety regulations and define legal liability for a
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: physical metal bar pressing against a physical human waste, how
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: on earth will our laws adapt when the danger isn't
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: physical but psychological or neurological?
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: That is going to be a legal nightmare.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: If a simulation triggers a fatal real-world response, like a seizure,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: a heart attack, or profound psychological trauma... And the computer
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: logs show the code ran, quote, flawlessly. Who is at fault?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Because there's no green light to check.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Right. As we move from physical roller coasters to digital ones,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: are we prepared to regulate the green light of the metaverse,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: or will we just be relying on the same outdated
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: warning signs?
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: A truly haunting frontier to consider.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: It really is. Thank you so much for joining us
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: on this deep dive. Stay curious, keep questioning the world
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: around you, and always look a little closer at the
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: systems you trust with your life.