The company behind Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a wrongful death case over a six-year-old girl’s fatal ride incident led to a judgment of just over $116 million. The move follows years of legal and regulatory fallout from the 2021 accident and now raises pointed questions about how a regional attraction can survive financially while still being held to account for a catastrophic safety failure.
Park leaders insist the business will keep operating while it restructures, even as the family of the child and local regulators remain central to the story. The case has become a test of how far a theme park can stretch limited resources to meet a massive civil verdict without walking away from its obligations to victims, workers, and the community.
From mountain attraction to Chapter 11 case
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park sits above Glenwood Springs, Colorado, combining cave tours with thrill rides that helped turn the mountaintop site into a tourist draw. The park’s profile is reflected in public listings such as a Google place entry that highlights its role as a regional destination, but that visibility also meant the 2021 tragedy quickly became national news. On a ride marketed as a family attraction, a six-year-old girl died after operators failed to properly secure her, a sequence of errors that state investigators later tied to training and procedural breakdowns.
An official probe by the Colorado Division of found that inadequate procedures, missed safety checks, and misinterpretation of restraint systems allowed the child to be dispatched in a position that made the ride lethal. The girl, identified in civil filings as part of the Estifanos family, became the focus of a wrongful death lawsuit that sought to quantify a loss her relatives have consistently described as immeasurable. That litigation culminated in a verdict of just over $116 million against the company that owns and operates Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, a figure that instantly dwarfed the park’s normal operating scale.
The size of the judgment left little doubt that some form of restructuring would follow. According to local reporting, Glenwood Caverns Adventure for Chapter 11 protection after the verdict pushed its total liability to just over $116 million, far beyond what a seasonal mountain park could cover out of cash flow or conventional insurance. In the same filings, the company stressed that it intends to remain open while it negotiates with creditors, trying to balance the need to compensate the Estifanos family with the survival of a business that supports local jobs and tourism.
The $116 million judgment and the case for reorganization
The wrongful death verdict did more than assign blame; it effectively rewrote the financial future of the park’s ownership group. Court documents describe how Glenwood Caverns Holdings LLC, the parent company, entered Chapter 11 after the judgment, with Glenwood Caverns Holdings listing the wrongful death award as the dominant unsecured claim. A declaration from Chief Restructuring Officer Paul Manis outlines a plan to use the federal bankruptcy process to manage that exposure, arguing that reorganization is the only realistic way to satisfy creditors while preserving the park as a going concern.
Financial details emerging from the case show how stark the numbers are. Analysis of the filing indicates that the verdict and related liabilities brought the park’s total exposure to just over $116 million, a figure that industry observers have compared with the balance sheets of much larger operators. One breakdown of the bankruptcy petition notes that Glenwood Caverns’ total was dominated by the wrongful death judgment, leaving limited room to service other debts or invest in upgrades without court-supervised relief. In public statements, executives have framed Chapter 11 as a way to bring transparency to the park’s finances while it pursues a reorganization that can fund both safety improvements and payments to the family.
The company’s messaging has tried to strike a careful tone between accountability and continuity. In a statement cited in local coverage, park representatives said, “We recognize the unimaginable loss of the Estifanos family. Our decision to pursue Chapter 11 is the most responsible path to stabilize our finances and meet our obligations.” That language, reported in a Colorado adventure park update, underscores how the company is appealing to both the court and the court of public opinion. Coverage in regional outlets such as Aspen and Glenwood has also highlighted that the park plans to stay open, with management promising more transparency about safety and finances as the Chapter case unfolds.
Safety reforms, community impact, and what comes next
Beyond the courtroom and the balance sheet, the Glenwood Caverns case has reopened a broader debate about ride safety and regulatory oversight. The public safety coverage around the bankruptcy has revisited how the fatal accident exposed gaps in operator training and ride procedures that regulators say must be fixed industrywide. The Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety has already tightened rules on documentation and operator checks, and the park has pointed to new protocols and staff training as evidence that it can operate safely while the Chapter 11 process runs its course.
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