Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Grad Nite Tragedy at Disneyland - June 1980

The article below appeared in the L.A. Times, following the death of a Grad Nite guest who had climbed out of a PeopleMover vehicle.




9 comments:

Matt said...

Wow, I vividly remember that, I was a freshman in high school and we had been there just one week before that.

MIKE COZART said...

One never wants to mess withe the PeopleMover!!! The PeopleMover has taken the life of two misbehaving guest!

Dan Alexander said...

Wow! The Peoplemover?! Seems like such an innocent ride.

Major Pepperidge said...

That has to be one of the strangest and dumbest ways to die....

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

So now we know why they took out the people mower!!!!

I recall when this happened and thinking "how stupid can you be"!

On a similar stupidity note, yesterday at DL on main street I saw a teenager jump on the back of the moving fire engine - about 5 CM's were yelling at him in about 2 seconds - dumb kid thought it was funny.

Unknown said...

Was there that night. Was in Tomorrow Land getting ready to ride the people mover. I was wearing shoes that were giving me major blisters. Told my friend to get out of line and go with me to main street for band aids. When we got back the People Mover had just closed. Didn't know why until the next day what had happened. They also didn't release the name of the brainiac who decided to jump from one car to another as it was passing by. What a stupid way to be remembered.

Anonymous said...

His name was Gerardo Gonsalez from San Diego High

Anonymous said...


My best friend and I witnessed the entire thing. This article is full.of inaccuracies. It did not happen in a tunnel, it was directly over the main thoroughfare. he was in the 3rd car, tried to jump over to the 2nd car and slid down between the 2, getting run over by the car he was in with his friends. The tram stalled, his friends and everyone else around witnessing it were screaming. Everyone jumped out of the cars onto the catwalk next to the track, when they did, the tram took off again, dragging the poor kid on around a bend, out of sight.

TokyoMagic! said...

Anonymous, YIKES! Thanks for sharing your eye witness account of the tragedy.