The Mindbender derails, killing three riders and severely injuring one at the Fantasyland (known today as Galaxyland) indoor amusement park at West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Mindbender was an Anton Schwarzkopf looping roller coaster at Galaxyland, a theme park in West Edmonton Mall, in Alberta, Canada. The ride officially opened to the public on December 20, 1985 at a cost of $6 million. At 44.2 m (145 ft) in height, it was the tallest indoor roller coaster in the world as of 2020.

Galaxyland Powered by Hasbro is an indoor amusement park located in the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was home to the world's tallest and longest indoor roller coaster, the Mindbender. It is also home to the Space Shot, the world's tallest indoor tower ride at the time of opening, at 36.5 metres (120 ft). The record was broken by Nickelodeon Skyline Scream at American Dream Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 2019.

West Edmonton Mall (WEM) is a large shopping mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, that is owned, managed, and operated by Triple Five Group. It is the second most visited mall in Canada, after the Toronto Eaton Centre in Toronto, followed by Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby, and the 14th largest in the world by gross leasable area. It is the second largest shopping mall, by square footage, in North America behind the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Mall of America encompasses 520,000 m² and West Edmonton Mall encompasses 490,000 m². By store count, West Edmonton Mall is the highest in the Western Hemisphere as it currently counts over 800 occupants, in comparison to Mall of America's 520 occupants. The mall was founded by the Ghermezian brothers, who emigrated from Iran in 1959. The mall's major anchor stores are London Drugs, Marshalls, Simons, The Brick, Winners/HomeSense and West Edmonton Mall Toyota.

Edmonton is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region, and is in Treaty 6 territory. It anchors the northern end of what Statistics Canada defines as the "Calgary–Edmonton Corridor".