Lawsuit Blames Injuries on Park Ride

A night stand littered with brown prescription bottles flanks Zipora Jacob’s bed, where she’s propped up by pillows. Her hair parts along a thick, raised scar from one of her four brain surgeries. A tube running under the skin from the right side of her skull to her stomach drains fluid from damaged brain tissue.

A former research assistant at USC, Jacob and her husband, Chaim, are suing Walt Disney Co. in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that a turbulent ride on the Indiana Jones Adventure Ride at Disneyland in 1995 caused her a severe brain injury. The case is scheduled for trial next month.

Jacob sees the case as part of a larger pattern: Many have been hurt on the Indiana Jones ride, her suit alleges. She and her lawyers see a connection as well to the Christmas Eve accident at Disneyland that killed one person and injured two others.

“You go to Disneyland because you think it’s clean, safe and wholesome,” said Barry Novack, one of her lawyers. “These theme parks are rolling the dice and the poor, unsuspecting public are tragedies waiting to happen.”

Disney officials declined to discuss Jacob’s case or the Indiana Jones ride’s safety record. But park spokesman Ray Gomez did characterize her claim as exceptional.

“More than 30 million guests have enjoyed the Indiana Jones ride and Mrs. Jacob is the only one who has alleged injuries of that type from the ride,” Gomez said.

And with 12 million or more visitors each year, the park’s safety record overall is remarkably good, Disney officials say.

Jacob’s case began in July 1995 when she took her daughter Tamar, now 11, and son Noam, now 16, to Disneyland as a present for her son’s bar mitzvah.

Jacob said the ride jostled her so hard that she felt sick. Once the ride was over, she staggered out, vomited and collapsed, her suit claims.

She was treated at Western Medical Center, then sent home, where she went into a coma, the suit contends. She then had a series of surgeries to treat a subarachnoid hemorrhage--bleeding resulting from extreme shaking--that led doctors to implant the permanent shunt in her brain.

Others Complain to Disney About Ride

To support their claims that the Indiana Jones ride has hurt hundreds of people since it opened in March 1995, Jacob’s lawyers filed documents with the court detailing complaints from guests.

The complaints, spelled out in letters to Disney and other documents the lawyers acquired from the park through the lawsuit, range from split lips to cuts to head injuries.

In the transcript of a deposition, a Disney manager who handles such complaints acknowledged she was injured on the ride.

Guest claims manager Betty Appleton told lawyers she suffered herniated discs in test rides on the attraction in 1994--injuries that she suspected resulted from the ride. She told lawyers the ride was improved before it opened to the public, however.

Jacob and her lawyers say it remains dangerous.

“Disney knew that people were falling like flies and having to be wheeled off that ride,” said Lisa Stern, another of her lawyers. “It’s like a mechanical bull.”

Unemployed since the accident, Jacob describes a life of constant pain with debilitating anxiety attacks and only a few clear-headed hours a day to read or interact with family.

Dr. Wilfred Van Gorp, a neuropsychologist at Cornell University Medical College in New York City who treated Jacob at UCLA, said she suffered “significant cognitive impairment, which affected her thinking abilities, including her memory.”

“I’m a shell of the person that I was,” said Jacob, who said she has medical bills exceeding $600,000. Once a successful researcher, Jacob now struggles to do the simplest of tasks. Reminder notes are scattered throughout the house: “Check clothes dryer,” or “Turn off flame under teapot” and “Remember to call Chaim so he doesn’t worry.”

Her husband said that Zipora isn’t the same woman he married and that the whole family has been affected by her condition.

“She’s really a lady that is quite handicapped,” Chaim Jacob said. “I never thought something so benign as going to have fun for a day would change your whole life.”

* CONDITION UPGRADED: A Disneyland guest injured last week is expected to recover. B7