It’s been awhile since I rode coasters - I’m not understanding why a ride like this has no shoulder harnesses.
Over the shoulder restraints are often uncomfortable for riders and can be dangerous on their own for variety of reasons. As coasters got more intense, the preference was to move toward a restraint that holds you in at the waist rather than the shoulders. This not only confines riders at their center of gravity, it eliminates the issues that come with shoulder harnesses.
Extreme coasters with these waist restraints are perfectly safe. What I believe this is ultimately going to come down to is a combination of a few factors:
1. The rider's pre-existing mobility issues
2. A restraint design that is accommodating to most, not all
3. Lack of clarity on the part of the TMs and the rider both about how his condition determined his eligibility to ride (which is the fault of neither party)
Those three things acting in combination with each other would result in this outcome.
I don't at all think that Stardust Racers is an unsafe attraction, that it's restraints are faulty, that the ride was designed incorrectly, or that this has anything to do with the suitability of the ride to be ridden.
I think it's just as simple as this man shouldn't have been allowed to ride it in the first place because the nature of his disabilities were such that it was a potentially unsafe ride
for him. Though he had no missing limbs and was able to transfer into the train, it sounds as if his disability meant that if he lost consciousness during the ride, his body would behave differently to that of someone who does not have that disability. That would explain why he was fine all the other times he rode the attraction, but not this time.
I think the ride itself is fine. I think this is, unfortunately, an error on Universal's part for allowing him onto the attraction.