Woman claims she broke vertebrae on giant slides at Erie's Frontier Park. She is suing

Large signs posted at the top of the three giant slides at the city of Erie's Frontier Park list 18 rules and regulations for use of the the popular attractions that opened in 2021.

First on the list: "This is a use-at-your-own risk facility." Second: "The City of Erie does not assume any responsibility for any loss, damage, injury or death."

A personal injury lawsuit is challenging the disclaimers.

An Erie woman and her husband are suing the city, the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier Park and other defendants. She is claiming she broke a vertebrae and suffered other back injuries when she bounced while using the middle of the three 40-foot-long stainless steel slides with her daughter in April 2022.

The plaintiff, Carrie Chatham, is claiming negligence and that the slide that she used "was unsafe, dangerous and/or otherwise hazardous due to its slick nature and the drastic changes in the slope of the slide," according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Erie County Court of Common Pleas.

The suit claims "the slide design was defective as it allowed users to reach excessive, dangerous and unsafe speeds," and that "the slide was manufactured for the intended purpose of being large and visually impressive, and was inadequately designed to reduce the risk of harm to users."

Chatham claims the slide design caused her "to be accelerated into a sudden, flattened area of the slide, causing her to violently bounce down the slide," according to the suit. The suit claims the slide "lacked adequate warnings and instructions."

A lawyer from Pittsburgh, Brandon Keller, is representing the Chathams. The 19-count suit seeks damages to compensate Carrie Chatham for her injuries and to compensate her husband, David Chatham, for loss of consortium due to her injuries.

Carrie Chatham, the suit claims, fractured the endplate in a vertebrae in her lower back and suffered other painful spinal injuries that led to "aggravation of pre-existing anxiety diagnosis."

Her injuries occurred on April 12, 2022, according to the suit. The suit was filed with a little over a month left in the two-year statute of limitations for filing person injury lawsuits in Pennsylvania.

The solicitor for the city of Erie, Ed Betza, said the city is reviewing the suit and will turn it over to its insurance carrier, whose lawyers will respond in court. The other defendants will also get a chance to respond in court.

The city has vouched for the safety of the slides.

Suit over giant slides lists five defendants

One of the defendants, the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier Park, manages the 33-acre Frontier Park, in the Frontier area on the city's west side, and raised the $450,000 to design and build the slides — two curvy slides on either side and straighter slide, made up of two slides side by side, in the middle. The slides are on the northern edge of the park, near the playground off West Sixth Street.

The slides are called The Griff Slides at Frontier Park, after Erie businessman Rick Griffith, who proposed the project and was one of its primary benefactors.

The city of Erie, another defendant, assumed ownership of the slides because it owns Frontier Park. The city also aided L.E.A.F. in designing the slides and soliciting construction bids.

The other defendants are Dahlkemper Landscape Architects & Contractors, of Erie, which handled the landscaping for The Griff; Goric Marketing Group USA Inc., of Massachusetts, which made the slides; and Considine Biebel & Co., of Erie, which installed the slides.

Study gave a go after reexamining safety of slides

After years of planning, The Griff Slides opened in October 2021. They were built into a hillside that had been the site of an old dumping ground for bricks. The project transformed what had been an unusable area of the park into a busy ride.

The city signed off on the design and the safety measures before the slides opened. Safety concerns led the city to close the slides temporarily in August 2022 — four months after Chatham said she was hurt — to perform a safety study.

The city's insurance carrier, Travelers Insurance, recommended the temporary closing of the slides and oversaw the inspection, according to the city.

The city undertook the study after it received three notices from parties indicating they were considering suing the city because of injuries they said they suffered on the slides. The city said at least one person claimed to have suffered a back injury on the slides and another person claimed a tailbone injury.

The Chathams' suit provides no indication as to whether Carrie Chatham was one of the people who had claimed injuries. The city reopened the slides in early September 2022 after the study found no problems.

"The report came back indicating that the slides are installed correctly and safely," Betza, the city solicitor, said at the time. "No suggested revisions."

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Lawsuit blames back injuries on Frontier Park giant slides in Erie PA