“I just saw my little brother die because of one of your attractions.”
Those were the words said to a worker by 10-year old Caleb Schwab’s big brother, according to witness Leslie Castaneda, just moments after tragedy struck on the water slide Verruckt, dubbed the “World’s Tallest Water Slide” by the Guinness Book of World Records, at Schlitterbahn Water Parks in Kansas City.
On Sunday, August 7, the Schwab family of Olathe, KS., was enjoying a day at the water park celebrating Elected Official Day with their father Scott Schwab, a Republican state of Kansas Representative, where families of lawmakers could enjoy free admission and lunch at the park.
However, the sunny day soon turned dark when Caleb Schwab was suddenly killed going down the water slide by a neck injury. Schlitterbahn immediately told guests to leave as paramedics and police came rushing to the scene. The incident now has people all over the country talking about safety and just how far is too far when it comes to attractions.
Created by Jeff Henry, the invention of such water park staples like the lazy river and pool waves, with Schlitterbahn senior designer John Schooley, Verruckt, the word literally meaning “insane” in German, is a slide that sends riders on a “60-degree, 17-story near free-fall before swooping back up the 55-foot-tall “Hill” where rides go from 5 Gs to weightlessness before descending to a stop in the splash zone...all in a matter of 10 seconds,” according to an article from USA Today from July 7, 2014.
Henry was proud of the creation. Hailing from Texas, it was important to him that the world’s largest water slide be in the United States.
“The world’s largest slide had been in Brazil, and we couldn’t have that,” Henry said. “I’m from Texas, it’s a matter of pride.”
However, the ride had problems from the very beginning.
“We had many issues on the engineering side,” said Henry. Rafts with sandbags were flying off of the sides and the original design had to be scaled down. After Guinness gave the ride much-deserved award of being the world’s tallest water slide, half of it was torn down to make corrections. The original opening day for the attraction was pushed back from April 25, 2014, to Memorial Day weekend.
Even then, there were doubts.
An EMT, only giving her first name as Rochelle, who started working at the ride to help monitor testing, said that “the attraction made me nervous from the start.” Even after the ride opened, she wouldn’t let her kids ride it and couldn’t even bring herself to do it.
“It’s dangerous, but it’s a safe dangerous now,” Henry said after testing, warning patrons that though “Schlitterbahn is a family water park, [Verruckt] is not a family ride.”
According to Schlitterbahn’s Verruckt website, the current requirements for riding are “2-3 riders per raft with a combined weight between 400 and 550 pounds. Riders will have to be at least 54” tall.” Riders are also required to be weighed before they make the ascend up the 281 steps to the slide and right before they are on the slide.
The fact of the matter is, whatever the police investigation turns up, it was human error, plain and simple. Unfortunately, tragedies sometimes happen when we push the envelope.
But where do we stop?
Will it take the death of Caleb, a rising star on the baseball and soccer fields, for us to finally figure out that bigger is not always better? That sometimes, even if it’s possible, we shouldn’t attempt it? Where is the line drawn from shooting for the stars and doing your best to tragedy and human breakdown?
Verruckt, while certainly possible, was just another example of being pushed just a little too far. When there are multiple stories of rider’s Velcro coming loose and guests almost flying out of their cars, shouldn’t those be warning signs of things to come?
We have seen this story all too often, though not always through a water slide. People who believe that they aren't good enough; people who think that they can do better, even when they're giving their all; putting their bodies and minds through Hell trying to reach perfection, trying to outdo everyone around them, only to have it eventually lead to a darker fate.
Of course it’s great to have hometown pride and brag to others that Kansas City has the tallest water slide in the world. I even pointed it out to my boyfriend on our way back from the airport. You can see it towering above everything else and it gives you a sense of accomplishment and thrill, though you didn’t have much to do with it.
Those things, however, are only on the outside. While it may have looked like a thing of beauty from the Interstate, on the inside it was an absolutely unpredictable, malfunctioning, chaotic mess. It's limitations were reached, and even though the warning signs were there, they were pushed even further.
Parents should have no reason to doubt their child’s safety at parks like these as long as they meet the requirements put in place. However, with these types of rides, are they truly safe for anybody? This definitely isn't the first time tragedy has struck an amusement park, but does that mean we continue to push boundaries in such risky ways just so we can come in first place?
It's important to realize that we really are capable of so much, but that we aren’t God and we have limitations for a reason, and if pushing the envelope is going to compromise the safety of somebody else, especially a young child, why even take that risk at all?
