The Tragic Ending to El Paso’s Magic Landing

On this week's episode of Rockstar 101, Shim and I were talking about Wunderland Sydney, a theme park in Australia. The story I had heard was that the park was mismanaged, which was why it was closed. Shim had a different story. Something that seems similar to an old El Paso theme park, Magic Landing.

The extent of my research on this is Wikipedia, which claim that the park was closed because they couldn't secure the $1,000,000 insurance policy required by the state because of a death.

Magic Landing was open from 1984 to 1988. The accident happened in the summer of 1985. Employee Frank Guzman Jr. was asked by a guest of the park to get his hat that had fallen off during a ride on the roller coaster. When Guzman went to get the hat, he rested his arm on the active part of the track. Before Guzman could get out of the way, the roller coaster car came through, severing Guzman's arm.

It's not clear why, but it took an hour to get Guzman out of the park, and he eventually died 3 hours later at William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

You can find an article from the El Paso Times by CLICKING HERE, and the article has pictures of the helicopter transporting Guzman out of the park to the hospital.

Here is a video I found on YouTube with footage of Magic Landing from 1988.