John Arnold/Novels

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In the Jurassic Park novel John Arnold was Jurassic Park's chief engineer. He was described as a thin, chain-smoking man and a chronic worrier. Before working at Jurassic Park, he worked as an aerospace engineer for the United States military, developing missiles. However, after the birth of his first child, weapons seemed too deadly and distasteful a career for his family. He then moved into developing and engineering theme parks; including Walt Disney World in Orlando, AstroWorld in Houston, and several other zoos and parks. He was depicted as somewhat of a peacemaker, as he restrained John Hammond when he tried to pick a fight with Nedry about the bugs in the park's system. Arnold was fairly certain that Jurassic Park would work out in the end and stated several times that he disagreed with Malcolm's predictions on the collapse of the park. He diligently worked on getting Jurassic Park back online with the help of Henry Wu throughout the novel.

Donald Gennaro eventually convinced Arnold to shut down the system. When the system came back online it was running on backup power. Arnold and the rest of the InGen staff were unaware of this until an 'AUX POWER LOW' warning popped up on Arnold's computer. This led Arnold to realize that the electric fences were not being

powered and had been kept off for a significant amount of time. This caused great distress among those in the control room, especially Robert Muldoon, the park's game warden. Muldoon and Arnold set off together to the maintenance shed to restore the park's systems, but were separated when Muldoon was attacked by a group of raptors. Arnold made it to the shed but was horrified to realize that a raptor had come in after him. He believed that he was safe when he descended a staircase that the raptor could not climb down. Arnold looked back at the Velociraptor and said his last words, "Too bad, buddy", right before the raptor leaped down the stairs and pinned him to the ground where his fear overcame him, not allowing him to injure the raptor, ward off the raptor, or even scream.