Two workers were injured in an amusement park accident when a crane collapsed on one of the rides Tuesday at the Scandia Family Fun Center in Sacramento.

•   Amusement park workers were on a crane attempting to do some maintenance on a swinging arm of a windmill-style carnival ride.

•   As soon as they removed the swinging arm and placed it on the crane, the crane toppled over.

•   One of the workers suffered a crushed arm and a broken leg. The crane operator sustained lesser injuries. Both were hospitalized.

The accident occurred shortly after 4 p.m., according to an ABC Channel 10 News report.

Two park employees were on a construction crane, wearing harnesses, as they performed maintenance on the Screamer — a 165-foot-tall, windmill-like ride. They were trying to replace a gear box on one of the ride’s long, swinging arms.

When the swinging arm was removed from the ride and placed onto the crane, the crane immediately toppled over. Both park employees were dangling on the crane as it fell.

One of them was hanging on to the crane as it toppled and suffered a crushed arm and a broken leg, officials told KCRA News. The other worker apparently was not injured.

The crane operator, who was not a park employee, sustained minor injuries. Both injured workers were hospitalized.

California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) is investigating the accident. They’re not sure whether there was a hydraulic malfunction or if the accident was caused by an operator error, according to a report in the Sacramento Bee.

Cal/OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer said crane owner Maxim Crane Works has been inspected 32 times and had no previous safety violations.

He said investigators would make sure the crane had no malfunctions and would review its load capacity to see if the operator took on more weight than the crane was designed to bear.

“A lot of digging will be done into work processes, training, the procedures followed and what was actually being done at the time of the accident,” Fryer said. The investigation may take several months, he said.

The park was closed Wednesday and there was no word on when it would reopen.

Here are more photos of the accident. Click on a thumbnail to see it full-size.

Sacramento Amusement Park Accident Lawyers

The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have successfully represented amusement park accident victims and their families for more than 35 years. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.

Those scary theme park rides may be scarier than you think. In Orange County alone, 284 amusement park accidents resulted in injuries at seven locations in 2009 and 2010.

The Orange County Register on Wednesday released a searchable database featuring details for all of the accidents.

•  State records show 284 injury accidents at seven Orange County amusement parks; 257 of those accidents occurred at Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, and Knotts Berry Farm.

•  About half of the accidents involved head, face, spine and neck injuries. None were fatal.

•  The ride with the most injuries was Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Rider, where 28 injury accidents were reported in 2009 and 2010.

About half of the 284 incidents at Orange County amusement parks involved facial or head injuries (chipped teeth and chin lacerations, for example) or torso and spine injuries, including neck and back pain, according to a report in the Register.

None of the accidents resulted in death.

The Register examined state accident records for seven parks with permanent rides: Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, Knott’s Berry Farm, Knott’s Soak City, Adventure City, Wild Rivers Waterpark and Westfield MainPlace mall.

Researchers found that 257 out of the 284 reported accidents occurred at the two Disney parks (168 total) and at Knott’s Berry Farm (89).

The individual ride with the most accidents was Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Rider, where 28 injury accidents were reported in 2009 and 2010. Accidents on the wooden roller coaster resulted in head injuries, cracked ribs, back pain and facial cuts.

In June 2010, 14-year-old Caitlynn Cavazos of Victorville suffered a concussion on the Ghost Rider, her grandmother said. Kelley Castellanos of Costa Mesa sprained a rib on the ride and had to take time off work. Since then, the park added padding and slowed down the last half of the ride, spokewoman Jennifer Blazey said.

Despite all these accidents, industry officials say amusement parks are safe. Nearly 300 million people took 1.8 billion rides every year at U.S. amusement parks, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA). The likelihood of being injured on a ride seriously enough to require overnight hospitalization is 1 in 9 million. The chance of being fatally injured is 1 in 750 million.

To put the numbers in perspective for Orange County, there were five injuries reported for every 10 million rides taken at Disney’s two parks. At Knott’s Berry Farm, where there are many more roller coasters, only 17 injuries were reported for every 10 million rides taken.

Those statistics say that parks are safe. But statistics probably didn’t matter much to the victims of 284 accidents in two years — one accident every two and a half days — in Orange County amusement parks.

Orange County Amusement Park Accident Lawyers

The trial attorneys at Blackman Legal Group, a California-based law firm founded by renowned trial attorney Clifford Blackman, have successfully represented amusement park accident victims and their families for more than 35 years. The nationwide toll-free number to call for a free consultation is 1-866-692-8126.