Caleb’s father and mother Michele issued a statement Sunday night regarding their son’s tragic death.
Advertisement
Verruckt’s 2014 opening repeatedly was delayed, though the operators didn’t explain why. A 12-year-old boy died Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016, on the Kansas water slide that is billed as the world’s largest, according to officials.
Schlitterbahn spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said Sunday the park’s rides are inspected daily and by an “outside party” before the start of each season. Incidents like what happened in Kansas City are extremely rare.
Meanwhile, residents of Olathe were mourning the loss of their state representative’s son.
The primary investigation is being conducted by the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department.
Instead, the Kansas City attraction – which holds the Guinness World Record for tallest water slide – was only checked by certified inspectors at the Schlitterbahn water park. “Verrückt will not reopen for the remainder of the season”.
A park website description of the water slide said two to three people are typically strapped to a raft and then sent down a “jaw-dropping” 51.4m slide.
The slide opened with a rider age restriction of 14, which would have prevented the boy from riding, but the park soon switched to a height restriction of 54 inches.
According to Time, Caleb rode the slide with two women he was not related to.
Without specifically mentioning waterslides, Kansas statutes define an “amusement ride” as any mechanical or electrical conveyance “for the goal of giving its passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills or excitement”. Cameron Jacobs, spokesman for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, says there are well-defined international standards for the safe design, construction, maintenance operation and inspection of water slides.
The Verruckt at the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas.
Regulations require only that owners of permanent amusement rides retain records for a year and rides are randomly selected quarterly for a records audit. For more information visit our website.
And Caleb’s death was not the first injury at Schlitterbahn, according to the nonprofit Amusement Safety Organization, which has been tracking self-reported amusement ride injuries nationwide since 2000.
The Department of Labor said it has requested documentation from Schlitterbahn “to ensure all safety requirements have been followed”.
Witness accounts of the death of 10-year-old Caleb Thomas Schwab have revealed incredibly graphic details about the moment the boy died.
A Kansas legislator says he wants to examine the state’s relatively light oversight of amusement park rides like the waterslide on which a 10-year-old boy was killed. Two of those lawsuits involved mishaps on the 3,000-foot King Kaw inner tube ride in man-made rapids, and all of the cases were settled out of court for undisclosed sums.
Advertisement
This version of the story corrects the last name on the byline.
