Verruckt Water Slide

While I do not have children, I used to be one myself. I am deeply saddened on learning of this 10 year olds death.

But my dad would not have let me go on that ride at age 10.
 
That waterslide is an eyesore.

Everyone around here knows what happened, and you can't help but glance at it and be reminded every time you drive past the place on the highway. There's no way NOT to see it. That photo in the first post is pretty much what it looks like as you drive by.

The park, the families, the county, everybody, wants it torn down (it's been OTS since the accident), but there's been a court order that's prevented the demolition. All the civil suits have been settled, but the criminal case is still going on and that's why the slide hasn't been taken down.
 
Sad ,that a young child had to die,do too someone’s shoddy operation,and planning.
 
I'm surprised they were even able to acquire an operating permit for that. Seems like the liability falls in more than just one set of hands.
 
Sorry. Other pieces did, clipped this from Google news. Pedantry aside, the only reason I posted it was that just looking at the profile it seems designed to launch people into Outer Space! Which I thought might be interesting to this group.
 
Clark1961 said:
The story does not make the claim that no engineers were consulted in building the slide.
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Most articles note that engineers were not involved in the entire process, and that the park owners more or less ignored the engineers anyway. There was certainly a lot of negligence involved, though I'm personally not convinced criminal charges were warranted. Call me skeptical, but had it not been a politician's child that died I imagine this would have remained a civil matter.
 
Not sure how they will make a criminal charge of murder stick when the guy rode it multiple times himself.

Criminal negligence maybe, murder, doubt it.
 
10 yrs old. on a water slide. very sad.

any NJ people remember this one? it only lasted 1 month.

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The builders picked Kansas specifically of the lack of regulation for rides such as these. Regulations as much as we dislike them have usually been purchased in blood.

The more news that is coming out in these indictments the more I get PO'd at this whole thing.
 
Most of the other injuries reported prior to the kids death were the kind of stuff you are going to get in any kind of public swimming pool. Broken toes, people who eat their knee etc. I dont think those prior injuries make much of a case that the thing was dangerous.

The articles I saw say that the owner of the park was involved in the design although he has no engineering training. They didn't say that no engineers were involved.
 
weilke said:
Most of the other injuries reported prior to the kids death were the kind of stuff you are going to get in any kind of public swimming pool. Broken toes, people who eat their knee etc. I dont think those prior injuries make much of a case that the thing was dangerous.

The articles I saw say that the owner of the park was involved in the design although he has no engineering training. They didn't say that no engineers were involved.
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The indictment says that one engineer was consulted... and pretty much everything he said was apparently ignored, as were (according to the indictment) numerous reports of malfunctions as well as personal observations of rafts going airborne. I thought the charges might be a little over the top until I read the indictment. If even half of it's true, then at least a couple of people should probably do some jail time.
 
weilke said:
Most of the other injuries reported prior to the kids death were the kind of stuff you are going to get in any kind of public swimming pool. Broken toes, people who eat their knee etc. I dont think those prior injuries make much of a case that the thing was dangerous.
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They knew people were launching off the slide, so they ad-hoc put a series of steel hoops in the 70 mph flight path just above head level to keep passengers from departing the ride.

When I saw that, my first thought was along the lines of WTF??
 
DaleB said:
The indictment says that one engineer was consulted... and pretty much everything he said was apparently ignored, as were (according to the indictment) numerous reports of malfunctions as well as personal observations of rafts going airborne. I thought the charges might be a little over the top until I read the indictment. If even half of it's true, then at least a couple of people should probably do some jail time.
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Indictments are by their very nature one-sided.
 
Clark1961 said:
Indictments are by their very nature one-sided.
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Yup. And they are designed to tell a story. For example they cite emails from someone involved in the erection of the structure when the structural soundness of the design is not a question with any bearing on the criminal case.

Yes, they winged it on the design of the slide itself. It sounds like they got the structural plans stamped. Until someone shows me a statutory requirement in KS that requires a stamp for the dynamic design of the ride, I am not sure that the absence of a licensed engineer on the design team can be used as a fact to establish criminal conduct. ASTM standards are just that, standards. Unless the use of those standards is required in KS or Wyandotte county code, it has no binding effect on the builder.
 
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Well it looks like a ski jump to me. I am reading the comments and really feel for someone losing a child, and I think of all the crazy rides I have taken my kids on and honestly I always trusted the designers that it seemed scary but was safe, kind of like watching a scary movie, you like to be scared in a way. But I look at that profile and I wonder how anybody thought that was a good idea.
 
Why did not the parents say, "No son, you are too young for this."

I am not meaning to play devils advocate, and I do not have the full story but it appears there is more here to point fingers at than the operator.
 
labbadabba said:
The builders picked Kansas specifically of the lack of regulation for rides such as these.
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That may have been part of the decision.

At the time, Wyandotte County (KC, KS) had really hit the jackpot with development at The Legends.

Hotels, restaurants, the Kansas Speedway (for you NASCAR and IRL fans), Sporting KC (for you MLS fans), the T-Bones (for you independent league minor league baseball fans), and a lot of other things, like Cerner and casinos, at that location. Even R. Lee Ermey (Gunny Hartman for all you Full Metal Jacket fans) lost his family farm to eminent domain. Right across the highway, development was expected to take off also, and that's where the Schlitterbahn was built. The expectation was for more development around it, but that's right when the economy tanked and now that area has only the waterpark and acres and acres of bulldozed ground surrounding it.
 
WTF? Did y'all read how many people were injured on this stupid thing before the kid was killed? At what point do you start to think... maybe we need to take another look at this ride...
 
hankrausch said:
just looking at the profile it seems designed to launch people into Outer Space
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Yes, I thought the same thing! One look at the side profile and it was very obvious that this does not pass the "looks about right" rule.. you don't have to be an engineer to know that the trajectory on that thing is all wrong

Zeldman said:
Why did not the parents say, "No son, you are too young for this."
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I read somewhere that an engineer had recommended a minimum age to ride it, and that certain weights would cause departure from the slide, but that the date opened they threw away the age requirement

ElPaso Pilot said:
my first thought was along the lines of WTF
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Yes, that was the most bonkers part, whoever thought that launching someone at 70 miles an hour into steel hoops and netting was a smart idea for safety is a complete moron.. despite the obvious design flaws, at the minimum they could have put an enlarged section of clear lexan on the top, at least that way if people did fly off the top at the worst they would get a bloody or broken nose, and not decapitated in a metal hoop
 
eman1200 said:
10 yrs old. on a water slide. very sad.

any NJ people remember this one? it only lasted 1 month.

View attachment 61322
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Was that at Action Park? Also known locally as "Traction Park" for all the injuries... They had another one that plunged you into a totally dark tunnel before spitting you out in midair 20 feet above the pool (which couldn't be seen from the top so you had no idea of what was coming).
 
Sad about the kid, but numerous youtube videos from riders make it seem like a typical slide:

 
From the video it looks like they have a number of traction pads at various places along the track to slow down the rafts.

The kid, a small 10yr old, was in the front and 2 much larger women were behind him. The front edge of the raft might have caught some air and got lift because of the rear CG vs simply being launched from the trajectory, I haven't seen anything that says one way or the other.
 
Matthew said:
From the video it looks like they have a number of traction pads at various places along the track to slow down the rafts.

The kid, a small 10yr old, was in the front and 2 much larger women were behind him. The front edge of the raft might have caught some air and got lift because of the rear CG vs simply being launched from the trajectory, I haven't seen anything that says one way or the other.
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Yeah I’m curious as to what actually happened. That looked a lot less dramatic than I originally thought.
 
tawood said:
Sad about the kid, but numerous youtube videos from riders make it seem like a typical slide:

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Interesting. That didn't appear nearly as dangerous as I would have thought. I'm sure if the traction pads weren't there, the results would be much different.
 
Dana said:
Was that at Action Park? Also known locally as "Traction Park" for all the injuries... They had another one that plunged you into a totally dark tunnel before spitting you out in midair 20 feet above the pool (which couldn't be seen from the top so you had no idea of what was coming).
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lol yup. that place was awesome. and dangerous. it wasn't a matter of 'if' you got injured......pretty much after every trip there you'd compare injuries with the people you went with. but back in those days you'd just move injured people aside so the next people can come thru. several deaths there as well.
 
Growing up in Connecticut, I never went to Action Park, but I do remember the commercials on the New York TV stations.
 
I would think if you played several of the videos on youtube of the slide during the trial, you'd get a N.G. for murder just from them. Sounds like over-charging due to the kid's dad's position.
 
I remember a roller coaster in San Antonio. It did not ride on rails. The thing was built of wood and the cars were on casters and rode in a channel. I think it would come out of the channel something like every 5th time. I have never been in such a violent roller coaster since. No belts or safety bars, just a wood bench to sit on and a handle to hold on to. It would throw passengers from side to side and my butt would leave the bench on some of the humps....

People would fight to get on that thing...
 
Zeldman said:
I remember a roller coaster in San Antonio. It did not ride on rails. The thing was built of wood and the cars were on casters and rode in a channel. I think it would come out of the channel something like every 5th time. I have never been in such a violent roller coaster since. No belts or safety bars, just a wood bench to sit on and a handle to hold on to. It would throw passengers from side to side and my butt would leave the bench on some of the humps....

People would fight to get on that thing...
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Lol, the Texas Giant was about like that. Roughest damn roller coaster I can remember.
 
And the co-owner was arrested on non-related charges:

"The Johnson County District Attorney charged Henry on Oct. 23 with a felony count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute and possessing drug paraphernalia, as well as two misdemeanor counts of buying sex and illegally possessing Xanax, a prescription medication meant for treating anxiety."

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article220565400.html
 
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