The concept didnt exist. She turned around to see what was happening. Riders must be at least 54-inches tall, and while previously the park had instituted an age minimum of 14 years, they've since removed it, saying the height requirement is sufficient. Other traumatised witnesses said they saw Caleb's family crying as emergency services treated the other two women who were on the raft. (Baetz and Barnes, the two sisters who rode with. Witnesses of waterslide tragedy recount boy's fatal fall. In a January 25, 2019 court hearing, an attorney representing Henry & Sons Construction, Schlitterbahn's general contracting affiliate, argued that the evidence shown to the grand jurors was flimsy and inadmissable because it included clips from a scripted show highlighting the construction of the waterslide, the Kansas City Star reported. Looks to me to be on the downslope of the second, smaller hill: Why is there netting around the slide? 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Schlitterbahn is open through Labor . Grisly new details about the boy killed on the world's largest water slide are emerging with one witness claiming the child was . Even with the investigation into Schlitterbahn and Verrckt, and the larger questions surrounding safety regulation and oversight within the amusement-park industry, experts and lobbyists say that most rides are safe enough.In 2016, the most recent year from which data is available, 384 million guests experienced 1.7 billion rides at four hundred U.S. amusement parks without injury, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), the worlds largest trade association representing the global attractions industry. He was screaming,' she said. We pay for your stories! Walking out of a Wyandotte County, Kansas, courtroom this past April, Henryregarded in the water-park industry as the Wizard of Wet, Lord of the Slides, and an aquatic Walt Disneywas surrounded by his legal counsel, confidants, and local media. What unfolded next could be viewed today as an instance of Henrys obsession with being the best. Such rides, according to the statute, commonly are known as Ferris wheels, carousels, parachute towers, bungee jumps and roller coasters. The park's website touts the ride as the 'ultimate in water slide thrills,' subjecting 'adventure seekers' with a 'jaw dropping' 17-story drop, 'only to be blasted back up a second massive hill and then sent down yet another gut wrenching 50-foot drop.'. When I heard a noise that didnt sound like it was supposed to come from that kind of ride, thats when I turned around, Sanford told. But officers are conducting a death investigation at the park. I just made it up on the spot, Henry recalled to Grantland. In a news article linked to the news release announcing a 2014 delay, Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry told USA Today that he and senior designer John Schooley had based their calculations when designing the slide on roller coasters, but that didn't translate well to a waterslide like Verruckt. This is a designed product for TV, absolutely cannot be anything else. If we mess up, it could be the end. All of the regulations are really done at the state and local level with respect to amusement parks and waterparks. Tom Sloan, a former twelve-term Republican state representative out of Lawrence who pushed for revised legislation on amusement-park safety in 1999 and 2001, saw firsthand how the money promised to the area coupled with the lacking oversight was going to make it easy for Schlitterbahn to get green-lit. Safety is absolutely paramount to them. In April 2017, the Kansas legislature, following an impassioned speech from Calebs father, strengthened a law on amusement-ride inspections that previously allowed amusement-park operators to not share private inspections with state officials, giving the state one of the weakest sets of regulations nationwide. KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A witness to the tragic death of a 10-year-old boy on the world's tallest water slide in Kansas has revealed gruesome details of how the boy died. Five defendants are charged in Schwab's death: Jeff Henry, John Schooley, Henry and Son's Construction, Tyler Miles and Schlitterbahn Water Park (KC Water Park Management Company). That is absolutely not what we would expect., Delays would creep in and cause a massive redesign that would stretch into 2014. That same summer, Sara Egan and her fianc visited the park on a day when law enforcement, first responders, and veterans got in for free. Its a sentiment echoed by Mike Taylor, the public relations director for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Kobey Lyons told theDailymail.com that he'd been told by woman at the park that day that the velcro straps on the ride were not working properly on the day of the tragedy. TheVerruckt- German for insane - is the highest waterslide in the world. Its dangerous, but its a safe dangerous now, Henry told USA Today in the lead-up to the opening. On the back of his headstone is another image of Caleb wearing the cap from his youth baseball team, the Kansas City Mudcats. The 370-acre (1.5 km 2 ), $750 million development included a nearly 40-acre (160,000 m 2) waterpark, which is Schlitterbahn's fourth waterpark and its first outside Texas . This is a scary picture. Caleb Schwab AP. You could tell where people hit it. (Baetz and Barnes, the two sisters who rode with Caleb and suffered serious facial injuries, settled with Schlitterbahn for an undisclosed amount in 2017. One said she had her eyes closed for the whole ride. And yes, Schlitterbahn representative has confirmed that the accident happened on Verrukt. Media reports leading up to Verrckts opening touched on the rides age limit of fourteen, which, according to the indictment, the slides designers decided on after a consultant had recommended the age be sixteen. State inspectors reportedly last checked the waterpark in 2012, well before the Verruckt opened. Other witness accounts stated the scale at the top of the slide was malfunctioning that day. How safe is your neighborhood? The Verruckt waterslide under construction on November 11, 2013. As the parks proliferate, concern has grown about the risks present even when most of the water is shallower than 3 feet - people who aren't good swimmers, especially young children, mixed with the unexpected hit of waves and falls that can lead to concussions or even drownings. Two horrified witnesses have spoken out about the gruesome scene when a boy was decapitated by the world's largest waterslide. Margaret Studyvin, an administrative assistant with the department, said it wasn't clear when or if autopsy results would be made public. Were you aware of the previous injuries on Verrckt? On its way up to the second hill of Verrckt, Raft B went airborne, colliding with a metal pole and netting meant to prevent riders from being thrown from the ride. Witnesses have described the gruesome scenes at a Kansas theme park where a boy, 10, was decapitated when he was thrown out of a waterslide's raft and into the safety netting above. Riders must be at least 54 inches tall and are supposed to be at least 14 years old. Meanwhile, the Kansas Schlitterbahn has been sued three times for negligence since 2014,although none were related to the Verrckt water slide,KCUR reports. The Kansas City Star reported that Henry was taken into custody by U.S. marshals out of Brownsville, Texas. WARNING: The. Off-duty Kansas City, Kan., police officers working security at the park called in the incident at 2:34 p.m. The thought of this is making me sick! It was the final time anyone went down Verrckt. We have to understand what's happened. The park, which had been open since 2009, was the first effort outside of Texas for Schlitterbahn, the family-run water-park dynasty thats become the worlds preeminent aquatic amusement giant, with its original park winning Best Waterpark in the World by Amusement Today for two consecutive decades. Before they took off, I said, Brothers stick together, Schwab recalled to ABC News. Investigators are treating the death as a 'civil matter' rather than a criminal incident, a police spokesman said Monday, as the park and Kansas authorities pressed to sort out what caused the tragedy. Email us attips@the-sun.co.ukor call 0207 782 4368. And now that its been two years, things are coming back, he said. Jess Stanford and Melanie Gocke were at the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, Kansas, on the same day a ten-year-old boy was killed on the 17-storey ride last week. When it was time to check out Verrckt, Schwab offered a reminder to his boysspecifically to ten-year-old Caleb, the second oldest of his children who loved playing outside. Police have now released. ", Joe Montana's 'The Drive' jersey sells for record $1.212 million, Jupiter and Venus appear to 'kiss' in the sky, FL Gov. Today, all archives of the episode and mentions of Verrckt have been scrubbed from the Travel Channels records, and the episode is no longer available on streaming services. (The state's assistant attorney general refuted Schlitterbahn's suggestion that the grand jury was "too stupid to discern a television show for evidence. The video here is a point-of-view shot of the Giant Verrckt Water Slide at the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, where the son of a state lawmaker died while plummeting down the 168-foot drop! Roller coaster death tragedy. It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. I have been very intimidated of this ride since I saw that video of the tests where the boats were flying to the moon. The Lagoon at the original Schlitterbahn, in New Braunfels, in 1991. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Ride designer Jeff Henry looks over his creation, the worlds tallest waterslide named Verrckt at Schlitterbahn Waterpark, in Kansas City, Kan. July 9, 2014. 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