Each year millions of people head to Cedar Point,situated on Ohio's beautiful Lake Erie shores, to take in the“Roller Coaster Capital of the World” and experience the park'sworld-record 72 rides—which also include 17 award-winning rollercoasters.

Located on 365 acres in Sandusky, Ohio, Cedar Point is theflagship park in the lineup offered from Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., which owns andoperates 11 amusement parks, three outdoor water parks and oneindoor water park throughout the U.S. and Canada. Its other parksinclude Knott's Berry Farm (Buena Park, Calif.) and Canada'sWonderland (Vaughan, Ontario). All told, Cedar Fair's parks servemore than 23 million visitors each year.

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Operating these family-fun parks is quite a task, and theefforts of its risk management department are essential topreventing injuries and claims—especially among employees. “Safetyis at the heart of everything we do,” says Kathy Hawkinson, CedarFair's corporate director of safety.

Cedar Fair uses the slogan, “We take fun seriously,” andHawkinson means what she says: Safety, risk management and workers'compensation are given utmost importance at the amusement parkcompany. Choosing to be self-insured, Cedar Fair works with itsthird-party administrator, Sedgwick, and its broker, Marsh, and inthe past three years implemented a robust return-to-work programfor injured employees, closed claims more quickly and reducedaverage claim costs.

“We are unique because we operate across eight different statesand in Canada,” Hawkinson says. That means carefully studying andcarrying out OSHA and health department regulations, and workingwith the state government agencies that oversee the theme parks,“so the challenge is to make every effort to ensure consistency,park to park.”

It's a tall order, especially considering that during its peakseason Cedar Fair employs 45,000 associates, of which 200 to 300per park are year-round, full-time employees. It's imperative tosecure buy-in from each of these employees regarding safetymeasures and risk management.

Upon hire, a new employee's orientation includes extensiveinstruction on primary safety protocols. Each employee is hiredinto a certain division of the park, which include merchandise,food, operations, park services, admissions, finance,accommodations, general services and maintenance. New hires receiveadditional safety training at their division and department levels.For example, within the foods division, a department would be aspecific picnic area or a cluster of food locations. In theoperations division, departments include ride operations,park-services sweepers, traffic and security.

Maintenance is a unique division, says Hawkinson, because itsrisk exposure is typically higher than the others: A ridemaintenance employee could climb a vertical ladder—while wearing afall-protection harness—higher than 100 feet to check on gears orother maintenance equipment. These employees, who are responsiblefor repair and welding, walk the tracks of roller coasters everymorning to ensure that they are in top working condition.

Controlling injuries

Hawkinson notes that sprains and strains arethe No. 1 injury to the Cedar Fair workforce, where injuries occurto the knees, ankles and backs due to the nature of how thrillrides are built and how they must be serviced.

Cuts and burns—generally sustained in the foods facilities—alsoare on the list of typical injuries. Personal protective equipmentsuch as thermal gloves are provided in each food shop. Correctiveaction was built into the safety program—for example, an associatewill not empty a fryer until it is less than 105 degreesFahrenheit. An external thermometer is placed next to the fryer aswell as the appropriate fryer dump bucket, Hawkinson says.

“You can't build out for employee error,” she adds. “But we cancertainly minimize it.”

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Returning to Work

If a staff member becomes sick or hurt on the job, Cedar Fairemployees are required to immediately visit the first aid division,where emergency medical technicians, firefighters or registerednurses evaluate the injury and recommend whether an employee shouldseek further medical treatment. If so, employees receive anevaluation and treatment from the company's established medicalprovider network.

One of Cedar Fair's most important goals for an injured employeeis to return that staff member to the workforce as soon aspossible. If the physician gives the employee the green light toreturn to work with restrictions, each park's safety managementteam finds a job that is suitable—for both full- and part-timeemployees. “We have taken a maintenance associate with a leg injuryand placed him at the main gate, with a stool, so he could greetguests and take tickets,” Hawkinson recalls, “and he enjoyed theheck out of it. And it was fun because the maintenance stafftypically don't get to interact with our guests.”

Working with its TPA and broker, Cedar Fair conducts quarterlyclaims reviews for all park locations to develop return-to-workstrategies and closures. Over the past three years, the companyreduced average claim costs from $3,258 to $2,653, althoughfrequency remained flat. In addition, the average number of daysthat a claim remains open dropped from 192 to 163.

“Being that we are in such a diverse business, there is a lot ofuniqueness to our claims—and an opportunity to learn from eachone,” Hawkinson adds.

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