I am so very sorry for all involved.

so it was bound to come out eventually.

rather than explain it the media left it up to the reader to imagine real decapitation as it helps sale better.

He had to hold on, for his life, but never reported the malfunction.

'As we were going down, we went down the first one, and as we were approaching the second one, he was in the back and you could hear him say that his strap came off and when we hit, he was real tense, shaken, because his strap had come completely off and literally he was using all of his force to hold him onto the slide,' Conrad told Fox4.

Matt did not file a complaint after his harness came off during the ride that day last year, but after Schwab's death, he is planning to report the incident.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3730799/Man-recalls-close-call-world-s-tallest-waterslide-boy-s-death.html#ixzz4Gs2qFAc8

The first thing he should have done is stood there until someone brought an attendant over. And then head straight to the admin offices to lodge an official complaint.

I thought that was against the rules here. I had a post deleted for mentioning that someone could have prevented later victims if they had reported the crime.

a dick for not reporting it.

BUT none contained the detail of the older guy who had the broken harness. None.
Partial, but no detail.
It's almost if decision was made NOT to print the whole story!
Gotta read it from across the pond!

I believe it was several months ago--oops--three weeks ago.
Here is the story: http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/riders-say-verruckt-safety-features-questioned

Governor Brownback is to blame for this tragedy. He has cut departments that monitor and inspect places like water parks so severely that no one from the State of Kansas EVER went there to check on safety standards and now a young innocent is dead.

Governor Sam Brownhole.

Scumbag koch-sucker who ruined the Kansass economy.

we can't know if any of the existing regulations were negligently broken ... Or if inspection would have found a problem at all.

We tend to assume that regulation and inspection will catch all the problems. Some things just go wrong even when all reasonable precautions are taken, sometimes employees or managers cut corners without letting those in charge know, sometimes regulations aren't up to covering all the innovations and design changes, and sometimes the victim does something foolish.

This family is trying to deal with an unimaginable horror in the only way they know. No one should be judging these grieving parents.

They would GLADLY subject everyone else's kids to decapitation because not having regulations is more important than children;s lives.

I think karma just came and bit that man and his supportive family in the ass.

that this could happen to anyone's child or they wouldn't have let their son on it.

You want me to pull up the Coal Mine tragedy, for instance?

"They never dreamed".

Please, the father is a POLITICIAN. He doesn't have to 'dream'. He should care about facts and the common good.

that could happen or they wouldn't have allowed their son on it.

So they didn't dream it could happen to anyone on that ride. They were wrong, obviously, but they didn't willingly subject their child or anyone else's to that risk. They put too much faith in the designers of the ride.

And this situation calls for compassion, not condemnation.

When exactly is a good time to point out consequences?

And pointing out consequences isn't "condemnation".

A child is dead and all you can do is talk shit like that.

You sound just like them.

Be careful you do not become the beast you fight.

Honestly, we are better than this.

it can very well bounce back and hit you in the head.

Nothing about that involves "morality".

Rightwing politician rejects government regulations on principle and refuses to fund governmental agencies puts everyone at risk of harm. Including his own family.

It was something more like having a ball bounce back from a wall--action/reaction, a consequence of inertia and forces. That normal force can be a bear, and we're all subject to impulse.


Most (R) don't reject regulations on principle. They reject certain levels of regulation and certain kinds of regulations. Understand your enemy as a set of diverse human beings instead of as a monolithic stereotype. Even if some do, that can't be generalized to all. (Over-generalization is a nice fallacy.)

Last edited Sat Aug 13, 2016, 05:53 AM - Edit history (1)

You are wrong. Most (R) do reject regulations on principle. They would have you believe they care, just like an employer pretends to care if an employee dies on the job but then cuts corners on safety devices and training while pressuring the employee to work past the limits of safety. Yes, that is the Repug party. I don't wish what happened to this boy to ever happen to anyone, but when you start stating that the Repugs are a set of diverse human beings, that is crossing the line to fantasy land.

Libertarians and Republicans accept this kind of thing happening. The way they accept mass shootings as a price of liberty. The free market, in their view, promotes safety. Do anything negligent and there will be lawsuits. That's is what is supposed to make capitalists make their products safe. The deaths of the people involved is the price of this economic liberty, in their view. Government should not make rules about it and thus interfere with the free market. So if you look at the guy's economic positions and they are like this, he's become the victim most right wingers sort of figure is going to be someone else in the big scheme of things.

The design is obviously totally unsafe. Reasonable regulation absolutely would have prevented this needless death.

Sure good to know we've got such a perfect person as you among us

You're the one who felt the need to go for the double; insult the republican AND religion

I just can't imagine the pain of losing your child this way.

I assumed that he'd either fell off the tall platform or he rebounded upward after the raft hit the bump at the bottom, thus colliding with one of the net supports.

Poor kid.

what a horror for them, too.

I suspect Brownback is scrambling today to make it look like his regulatory agencies aren't gutted like the rest of KS govt.

I suspect OSHA will be paying visits to the park, as well.

employees have to ride it occasionally, maybe.

if thats the case, they need to find out why such a small child was allowed on it

could have met.

ANd yes, 5 ft tall is 60 inches, so 54 isnt much

A Boy Died on This Water Slide—in One of the Many States That Barely Ensure That Rides Are Safe

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/08/08/a_boy_died_on_a_water_slide_in_kansas_one_of_many_states_that_barely_regulates.html

Metal corrision is my guess. Although there are super strong plastics. Velcro does wear out, too. Bet things change after this.

Edit: OK after looking at the article from the Daily Mail it appears the harnesses are only 3 point and I don't see any buckles. IMO they need to go to 5 point harnesses with a buckle.

They get rushed, trying to get as many people through as quickly as possible.

After a thorough investigation, I hope they tear the thing down.

Check out the link to the Daily Mail story. Scroll down to look at the shot of people in one of the rafts. I don't see any buckles but I am on my phone.

I realize they were velcro. That would make checking them that much more important. At least with a buckle, it's either buckled or not.

Jeezus!

Something with those obvious G-forces. Velcro.

Something put on the shoes of people with arthritis because it easy to open.

But....deregulation is GOOD!

hmm, i think there's a bit more to it and those co-passengers are likely to be scarred for life

I can't imagine.

From the little boy's DECAPITATED HEAD hitting them.

Many accounts are glossing over this. The women's families have said they are emotional wrecks.

Those polls that hold the netting in place, with the weight and force behind the ride could easily decapitate anyone. How the ride builders missed that...is strange imo.

It sounds like his harness failed and the ride threw him out of his raft and up against the net. Going 70 miles an hour, smashed into the pole. The child was essentially in a high speed car crash.

What a horrible way to die, and horrible for the other passengers and his family.

I wonder why they could not just make one solid netting. I guess it must have reinforcements. Poor kid. Looking at those pictures breaks my heart.

This is a roller coaster. It's essential that people be held in their seats during the ride. The net shouldn't even be necessary.

The whole design of the ride mystifies me.

After looking at that footage, no thanks...give me a traditional roller coaster.

And, his HEAD and body hit the two women riding with him -- one has a broken jaw and one a broken orbital, and they are by all accounts emotional messes.

In the making of video they had to reprofile the hill because it was launching the rafts like a ski jump. Once they got it, they probably thought that netting was a good backup safety mechanism.

Not something I would want to encounter while traveling 70mph.

What's the best case scenario? You are traveling 70mph, go airborne and what? Get tangled up in some crappy net? Cut up? Jerked to a stop? Clotheslined?



https://m.

Just give me a roller coaster OR a water slide...I don't think the two mix well.

They need to shut that sucker down

It was too tall to be built in other states.

Having read the other man's incident - The child was too small for the harness. According to the man, the harness was Velcro. There was likely room inside the harness, in other words it was loose on the boy. When they hit the top and started down (the same place the other man's harness came loose) with such force it pushed the boy into the strap and it released.

I don't think Velcro should be used for much more than an adjunct on something like this ride. Velcro can become damaged and I doubt there are many inspections of every harness.

put into operation in 2014, safety changes were put into place because carriages had been flying off the ride.

to keep the raft from launching. I doubt a 10 year old boy and two women weigh 400 lbs.

Perhaps now the state legislature will act and create some meaningful guidelines in deference to their colleague--but it just sucks that someone in their own club has to suffer a loss before they start to care.

I think about Orrin Hatch when things like this happen. He had a family member who might benefit from embryonic stem cell research, so he put aside his POV re: abortion (he opposes it) and what constitutes "life" to an anti-abortion advocate when it came to that critical research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/19/us/several-gop-senators-back-money-for-stem-cell-research.html

It's only human to care for your own more than anyone else's, but it's inhuman not to care at all.

A good time to read the play All My Sons, by Arthur Miller.

to sit in a wading pool does not sell tickets

the trick then is to imply danger while creating no danger i guess

with Velcro would be enough to safely hold people is beyond me. It only had a lap strap and a shoulder strap like you have in a car.