Kansas City Police Chief Terry Zeigler said the death is being investigated as an accident.
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KCK police are investigating an accidental death Sunday at Schlitterbahn.
The Wyandotte County coroner’s office began a post-mortem examination on Monday. Margaret Studyvin says it’s unclear whether the autopsy results will be publicly released and, if so, when.
In an email Monday, Winter Prosapio, spokeswoman for Schlitterbahn, said the park would not be “participating in any further media interviews at this time”. “We will see him another day”. Riders can reach speeds of up to 65 miles per hour as they go down the ride.
According to the park’s website, the slide required two to three riders to be strapped in a raft with a total weight between 400 and 500 pounds.
The raft is meant to slide down the jaw-dropping about 168 foot, and 7-inch structure then gets blasted by up again up a massive hill and down gut-wrenching about the 50-foot drop to enjoy the ultimate water slide experience.
The Verrückt (German for “crazy” or “insane”) was named the world’s tallest water slide by Guinness World Records in 2014.
Caleb Schwab was the son of Rep. Scott Schwab and his wife, Michele, who issued a statement Sunday night.
“As we try to mend our home with him no longer with us, we are comforted knowing he believed in our Savior Jesus, and they are forever together now”, the family said.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help a Kansas lawmaker’s family cover funeral expenses for a 10-year-old son who died at a water park in Kansas City, Kansas.
A bystander, Leslie Castaneda, told KMBC 9 News Kansas City that she witnessed Caleb’s brother tell an employee, “I just saw my little brother die because of one of your attractions”. Before opening in 2014, design problems repeatedly pushed back the launch.
In early tests, rafts carrying sandbags flew off the slide, prompting engineers to tear down half of the ride and reconfigure some angles at a cost of $1 million, Henry said.
Police spokesman Officer Cameron Morgan says the boy died Sunday at the Schlitterbahn Water Park.
Consumer Product Safety Commission statistics for 2015 are not available, but a review of the raw data found 45,000 injuries associated with amusement rides and water slides nationwide; about 30,000 of these cases involved those under age 18.
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“We know for a fact in the industry that the majority of incidents involving amusement park rides is a result of human error, whether it’s from a park operator or guest”, Martin said.
