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Creator Of 'Euthanasia Roller Coaster' Says There Is A Way To Survive It

Creator Of 'Euthanasia Roller Coaster' Says There Is A Way To Survive It

Julijonas Urbonas has always had a passion for roller coasters and wanted to take it to the next step

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers

The man behind the 'Euthanasia Coaster' says that there could be a way to survive it.

Julijonas Urbonas, from Lithuania, grew up in a small Soviet amusement park, and had always loved being swept up into the air by roller coasters.

But eventually he became jaded, seeing the same 'macho' thrill rides over and over again.

So he decided to create something new, designing a 'hypnotic death machine' that you could only experience once. Basically, he said it would be 'engineered to humanely - with elegance and euphoria - take the life of a human being'. Yikes.

However, speaking to LADbible, he revealed that if the roller coaster ever became a reality, there could be a way to survive it - and all you'd need is some fancy anti-gravity gear.

Mr Urbonas said: "A possible usage is the 'hacked' thrill ride, which was suggested to me by an aeronautic engineer who happened to visit the coaster's scale model during an exhibition.

Julijonas Urbonas

"She said, 'Your machine could be hacked, you know.'

"After my confusion, she explained, 'Using anti-g trousers that prevent pilots from blackout and fainting, I believe I would survive the ride and turn it into the most extreme thrill ride.'"

Anti-g suits, confusingly also known as 'g-suits' (the g stands for gravity), are used by pilots and prevent loss of consciousness during acceleration. This can be caused by blood pooling in the lower half of the body, away from the brain.

The principle of the Euthanasia Coaster is that it causes an 'oxygen deficiency in the brain' owing to its speed and many loops - meaning anti-g kecks would certainly counteract the effects of this particular death ride.

So the engineer's science could well check out here. Still not sure whether I'd want to take a chance on it, though.

The Euthanasia Coaster project, which was awarded the Public Prize of New Technological Art of Update 2013, has become a 'unique media phenomenon' since it was unveiled in 2010.

Mr Urbonas continued: "Today, the roller coaster is at a stall of the innovation, as it has already reached the peak of bodily stimulation intensity.

"In the Euthanasia Coaster I wanted to overcome it, even dramatise, to celebrate this historical moment of the ride and the rider's body."

He added: "At first, what was designed was just the fatal falling trajectory with no purpose but one: to kill the rider pleasurably and elegantly.

"It was a sort of a designed thought experiment of what the ultimate roller coaster would be like and what possible usages it would be open to."

Mr Urbonas explained that after designing the ride, he listened to feedback from scientists and the general public, and realised that aside from creating the ultimate roller coaster, it had other implications.

"The key one, of course, was euthanasia," he said.

"It is because the coaster may provide not just pleasant death in terms of physiological pleasure, but also - and more importantly - an alternative death ritual appealing to both the individual and the mourning public."

And when asked whether the death machine was ever envisioned as something that could be physically built in the real world, the designer said: "Yes.

"It was engineered with the help of a group scientists and experts from various relevant areas such as aerospace medicine, thrill ride engineering, aerodynamics, etc."

In summary, he told us, all this hard work was not so that the roller coaster would be built, 'but rather to convince the public that it can be built'.

He added: "It makes the public immerse themselves in the narrative and forces them to think about such sensitive issues."

Featured Image Credit: Julijonas Urbonas

Topics: Interesting, Technology