Details remained murky about what happened Sunday to Caleb Thomas Schwab on the 168-foot-tall “Verruckt” – German for “insane” – that since its debut two years ago has been the top draw at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas.
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Leslie Castaneda, who was at Schlitterbahn on Sunday, told The Kansas City Star that she saw Caleb’s crumpled shorts or bathing suit at the bottom of the ride, along with blood on the slide’s white descending flume. The letter said all rides met guidelines for being insured with “no disqualifying conditions noted”.
Since Caleb’s tragic death photos and stories have emerged of close calls with the ride, numerous people saying safety straps fell off during the ride or failed, these shocking revelations have called into question the safety of the ride and the cause of Caleb’s death.
State law leaves it to the Kansas Department of Labor to adopt rules and regulations relating to certification and inspection of rides, adding that a permanent amusement ride must be scrutinized by “a qualified inspector” at least every 12 months. The last records audit for Schlitterbahn was June 2012.
Two other women were on the same raft as the young boy.
The death of Caleb is also not the first tragedy at Schlitterbahn, in 2013, 20-year-old lifeguard, Nico Benavides was killed on the company’s South Padre Island park in Texas, when a mechanical door slammed on his head.
Kenneth Conrad told WDAF-TV that during his trip down the waterslide past year with a friend, the friend’s shoulder strap came “completely off”.
Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas, closed the Verruckt ride after Caleb Schwab died Sunday.
They were not related to him.
Pulling a cooler behind her, 42-year-old Sara Craig said she was looking forward to an afternoon of water fun Wednesday with her 14-year-old son, Cale, and one of his 13-year-old friends.
“You’d think for something that’s supposed to be known for being the tallest slide in the world they’d have a little bit more secure straps than Velcro”, Sanford said.
They rode it again, only to see the restraint on her son’s friend also come loose by the time it was over. A video shot by his wife shows it loose at the ride’s end. “I think we have a serious issue with the restraint system”.
The original May 2014 opening date for the ride was pushed back after early tests showed rafts carrying sandbags flying off the slide, prompting engineers to tear down half of the ride and reconfigure some angles. “We had many issues on the engineering side”, said Henry, calling Verruckt “dangerous, but it’s a safe dangerous now”, according to USA Today.
Jon Rust, a professor of textile engineering at North Carolina State University, said the material used on the straps, commonly called hook and loop, was not created to keep a person in the seat.
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“It’s got to be used in a safe manner, and that doesn’t include stopping someone’s fall or preventing someone’s ejection”, Rust said. Two media sneak preview days in 2014 were cancelled because of problems with a conveyor system that hauls 100-pound rafts to the top of the slide.
