Fifteen years have passed since legislation was passed that tightened safety measures on carnival and amusement rides.
Now, a former Springfield resident and her family are pushing for new and better standards.
Karen Aiello Janko will testify Tuesday before state legislators as House 3727 bill, “An Act Relative to the Safety of Mobile Amusement Equipment,” will be heard in Boston. The hearing will come more than a year after Ava Janko, who was 11 at the time, lost consciousness on a ride at the 2018 Apple Blossom Festival in Westford, where her family now lives.
Ava Janko and former State Rep. Paul Caron will also testify. Ava Janko says that after she passed out because of centrifugal force, she was unable to hold on to the ride known as “The Zipper."
This caused her head to snap back and forth on the spinning ride, resulting a brain injury and nearly six weeks of paralysis. Ava has fully recovered.
State law does not require that rides have safety belts. The Zipper, which passed an inspection not long before the incident, has a lap bar and bars to hold, but Ava Janko’s loss of consciousness made those protections ineffective.
Caron, who is now the president of Paul Caron Associates of East Longmeadow, was chairman of the House Public Safety Committee during his time on Beacon Hill. His connection with ride safety is personal; in 1973, Caron and a friend fell seven stories from a Ferris wheel at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield.
Caron went into a coma and suffered paralysis, as well as injuries to his collarbone and arm. Eventually, he and his friend both recovered fully.
Carnival ride safety requirements were upgraded after a 2004 fatality in Shrewsbury.
In response to Janko’s accident, Rep. James Arciero, D-Westford, has proposed legislation that would require all amusement park rides to carry passenger safety restraining systems that secure passengers to the interior of the ride’s car or carriage.