The Disney theme parks (Disneyland in California and Disneyworld in Florida) are incredibly popular spots for vacations, particularly during the summer and fall seasons. One of the most spectacular of Disney’s ride creations is the Tower of Terror, a screamingly long free fall in an elevator from the top floor of a fake hotel. Inspired by the Twilight Zone TV series, the ride is a truly terrifying drop, lurching passengers towards the ceiling of the elevator cabin.

Preying on the fear that some people have of an elevator malfunctioning and free falling into doom, both American Disney parks have a Tower of Terror that excites park guests every day. The ride takes you up 183 feet in a motorized elevator cabin that moves like a roller coaster through bizarre hotel scenes of floating eyeballs and other Twilight Zone themed amusements. Once the cab hits a wall, it makes a jarring noise and the whole thing moves up slowly. Then suddenly the piece of wall in front of you flies open and you see the entirety of the Disney park for a few seconds. Next thing you know, you’re free falling down an elevator shaft that gives riders several negative G forces – for a few moments, everyone is weightless.

Unfortunately for one guest, the Tower of Terror was more than he bargained for. In a bizarre twist on the free fall concept of the Tower of Terror, a man was injured on the Californian version of the ride last week, but not because of the normal drop – the man fell off a station area and landed 25 feet below on the ground. No worries though…he released with minor injuries from the local hospital.

Next time, I suggest that he just take a normal elevator.

It seems that a lot of metro transportation services throughout North America are having a ton of problems keeping elevators and escalators in working order during the hot summer months, when travel is quite crowded as it is. Just a few weeks ago, I discussed the issues that Washington, D.C. is having with their metro stations:

“Washington, D.C.’s public transit system has hit a wall. It is unable to quickly and efficiently move passengers from area to area because of failing escalators and elevators. Many of the reasons for these massive outages stem from a shrinking budget coupled with higher operating costs of the D.C. Metro Line, the city’s subway system.”

This problem isn’t exclusive to Washington, D.C. either. A newspaper in Canada recently published an article about the number of broken down elevators at stations all across the country’s provinces. Users of the OC Transpo system have been dealing with broken down elevators for more than 6 weeks now, leaving handicapped or otherwise disabled transit users to miss connections and transfers.

These breakdowns are also the cause of many delays and backup around the stations, seeing as it can’t move riders from train to train effectively and efficiently. Apparently, the only way for passengers to know if their specific elevator is working is to check the OC Transpo website before getting to the station, which is quite convenient.

Luckily for some riders, the article says that OC Transpo authorities are looking into changes:

“Alain Mercier, the general manager of OC Transpo, said most Transitway elevators should be overhauled because they are 25 years old, not because people are urinating in them. Mercier said some elevators would have to be taken out of service for six to eight weeks at a time, depending on the amount of work required to keep them safe.”