Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@ridesnslides/ZANDLAND
Topics: Theme Park, Weird
Jess Battison
The designer of the euthanasia rollercoaster that ‘kills anyone who uses it’ has revealed the moment someone starts to die on it.
Julijonas Urbonas conjured up this (very much hypothetical) ride which could end lives ‘with elegance and euphoria’ back in 2010.
The Lithuanian engineer had previously worked at a theme park and dubbed his design the ‘hypothetic death machine’, picking up an award for the Public Prize of New Technological Art of Update 2013.
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His project would see riders zoom at speeds of up to 223mph across a whopping 1,600ft stretch. And as the name suggests, riders very much would ‘only ride once’.
Explaining his pretty macabre idea, Urbonas said: "Riding the coaster's track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death.
"From there, you would begin experiencing a blackout and ultimately you would eventually lose consciousness and die."
In a 2021 interview with ZANDLAND, the engineer broke down the stages of the ride to explain just at what point a person’s decision to end their life begins.
And it comes where he reckons it would be most ‘fun’.
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“As with any roller coaster you’ve got a larger structure, but a taller structure - what is called a drop tower,” he explained.
“And the fun part I would imagine would be the slow, slow wobbly movement because it would provoke you to think about your decision really seriously.”
So, Urbonos said it would be at the moment you’re ‘on the top’ you might actually end up choosing to come back in case you change your mind at that last key moment.
The engineer added: “But if not, you are then dropping down, free fall, half a kilometre free fall until you reach something between five and six hundred kmph.
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“Because of this curvature, you’re pushed against the seat so much that your blood is rushed towards lower extremities - so no, or little, blood is left in the upper parts of your body.”
He claims that the design means at this point, ‘your brain starts to suffocate’.
“It starts to produce all kind of weird experience that are usually accompanied with euphoria, extreme pleasure,” he added.
And this all links back to how Urbonos observes that those who ride rollercoasters in general are essentially ‘torturing themselves with pleasure’.
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Well, that’s one way to see it, I guess.
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