Action Park's wave pool killed at least three visitors — 15-year-old George Lopez in 1982, 20-year-old Donald DePass in 1984, and 18-year-old Greg Grandchamps in 1987. After Grandchamps drowned, investigators found lifeguards hadn't attempted CPR. The park's response: 'We're not quite sure he was not resuscitated.'
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Action Park's wave pool was marketed as thrilling entertainment but functioned as a recurring death trap. In 1982 alone, 15-year-old George Lopez drowned in the wave pool and 27-year-old Nathan Langenthal was electrocuted in the whitewater kayak ride — the New Jersey coroner officially ruling heart failure by electrocution. State investigators later found a short circuit in one of the wave-producing fans, yet Action Park's owner Eugene Mulvihill told reporters Langenthal had 'probably had some kind of stroke.' In 1984, 20-year-old Donald DePass drowned after rocketing off a 10-foot slide into the pool. In 1987, 18-year-old Greg Grandchamps drowned in the wave pool; the prosecutor's investigation found lifeguards had not attempted CPR after pulling him out. Marketing director Vernon Merritt's response — 'we're not quite sure he was not resuscitated' — became one of the episode's darkest moments of corporate deflection.
In 1982, 27-year-old Nathan Langenthal died in Action Park's whitewater kayak experience. The coroner ruled heart failure by electrocution; investigators later found a short circuit in a wave fan. Eugene Mulvihill's response: 'He probably had some kind of stroke or something.'
Action Park denied electrocution killed Nathan Langenthal in 1982 even after the coroner ruled heart failure by electrocution and investigators found a short circuit in a wave-pool fan.
Action Park operated for 20 years with near-hourly injuries and no liability insurance, finally closing in 1996 only when creditors forced bankruptcy proceedings.
Action Park didn't close because of a death or public outrage — it closed in 1996 because creditors discovered the park had been operating with zero liability insurance. After 20 years of near-hourly injuries and rides built by non-experts on shoestring budgets, it took a bankruptcy filing to shut it down.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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