
Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards - scarmig
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/us/waterslide-boy-decapitated-charges.html
======
teraflop
The full indictment [1] is well worth reading. The most relevant sections for
HN, in my opinion:

> 35\. [Designer Jeffrey] HENRY compared the construction of Verrückt to an
> arms race against rival waterparks.

> 37\. HENRY admitted that he was ignoring established industry safety
> standards because he felt he could redefine those standards with his own
> achievements. While describing his vision of how Verrückt would change the
> industry, HENRY explained, "[W]e're going to set the standards up, and set
> the education up, and we're gonna redefine many of the definables that have
> been defined in the industry that we couldn't find good reasons for."

Also check out paragraphs 85-89 for some incredibly unethical behavior on the
part of one of Schlitterbahn's attorneys.

[1]:
[https://www.wycocourtks.org/uploads/4/4/1/2/4412070/2018-03-...](https://www.wycocourtks.org/uploads/4/4/1/2/4412070/2018-03-21_indictment__miles_swkc__filed_redacted.pdf)

~~~
crazypyro
edit: The owner was arrested just today, so I had missed that.

Can someone explain why they are charging the 29 year old director of
operations who started as a lifeguard and had no formal training or connection
to engineering/design and not one of the designers or owners, both of which
are mentioned in the indictment multiple times?

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me other than they needed to charge someone.

~~~
smitherfield
The owner was just arrested as well,[1] and I'd bet that more will follow. My
guess is the director of operations will get a plea deal in exchange for
testifying against the others.

[1]
[http://www.kansascity.com/news/article206886324.html](http://www.kansascity.com/news/article206886324.html)

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah typically the defendant they want to testify (often the lowest-level,
least-responsible defendant) is charged first. In exchange for a deal, that
person will provide as much evidence as possible against everyone else.

It is interesting that this firm has an "owner" rather than a CEO and a board.
It's my impression that executives and board members would be less likely to
face criminal charges in this sort of situation.

~~~
donarb
Schlitterbahn is a private family-run business.

------
chrisacky
I'm a new father of two boys and couldn't imagine the torment I'd go through
if something tragic would happen to them, pain like that cannot be "made
right" by a simple settlement, however large. What irks me though in this
instance, is that Caleb's father is state legislature in Kansas and because of
laws he has voted for, (or rather against) his compensation should have been
capped at $300k -- but instead through "getting around laws" which he himself
has helped pass, he was awarded one of the largest settlements in Kansas
history[1]. No sum of money could ever compensate such loss, however, when
he's made a career out of denying other Kansians for similar losses it just
seems hypocritical to me. Even after receiving the settlement money, he hasn't
had an epiphany moment and campaigned/voted to help other families with
similar losses. If ever there was negligence sufficient to warrant one of the
largest tort settlement in his state, this strikes me as a short-runner, but
what about other families, why is it a one rule for me, and one rule for my
constituents.

[1]: He did this by bringing suit out of Kansas and instead in Texas under
"choice of law" ...

I read about this here: [https://www.injuryrelief.com/blog/how-is-
representative-scot...](https://www.injuryrelief.com/blog/how-is-
representative-scott-schwab-not-a-hypocrite/) \- I assume it's a reputable
source.... but could be a load of crap and out of context falsehoods, written
by authors who have an interest in raising the cap in Kansas.. but hey, even
if they do, the underlying sentiment is still true?..

~~~
pm90
If you haven't, I urge you to read
this:[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/conservatism-
hone...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/conservatism-honesty-
crime-gop.html)

------
mabbo
In Canada, a certified Professional Engineer (a protected title not just
anyone can use) would have had to sign off on such a construction. They would
have had to certify it was safe. And if someone died because they ignored
engineering principles and signed off on it anyway, they can be criminally
charged and sent to jail.

There's lesser charges for lesser offences of course- lose your licence, be
fined, etc. There are regular publications of who was found guilty of what. My
wife eagerly awaits her monthly(?) engineering magazine to read "the blue
pages" at the back that name and shame

This is all to day that the whole system here is designed to give very strong
incentives to engineers not to assert something is safe when it isn't. And for
the most part, it works pretty well.

~~~
bambax
It's surprising it isn't the case everywhere; can you really open a ride in
the US without a prior safety inspection??

~~~
adventured
Amusement park regulations are state-based, and literally vary for every state
in the US -

“Fifty states in the United States of America and no two inspect rides the
same way. That’s wrong,” said Ken Martin, an amusement park safety consultant
who has been one of the loudest critics of the nation’s patchwork of state
laws. “We’re not close to being in the same book, state to state. We’re not
even on the same page of the hymnal. We certainly aren’t singing in key.” [1]

"Twenty-nine deaths on amusement rides or water slides have been reported to
the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission since 2010, spokeswoman Patty
Davis said."

To put that figure into perspective however, ~335 million people visit the 400
US amusement parks each year. [2]

So three deaths per year out of 335 million people or visitors (?), for a
0.000001% fatality rate. I'm not sure at that scale if you can get it from
three down to zero no matter what you do. This water slide case is a clearly
horrendous violation that should never occur. I'm going to assume that with
that many parks and that many visitors, with the best case scenario of
regulation, with accidents guaranteed to happen, some people will die out of
335 million visitors.

[1]
[https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/08/24/42...](https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/08/24/424278.htm)

[2] [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amusement-parks-the-ride-of-
a-l...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amusement-parks-the-ride-of-a-lifetime/)

~~~
jonhendry18
I'd think most amusement park / fair ride fatalities are due to maintenance
problems.

I can see that being difficult to oversee, especially with the mobile fairs
that pack up the rides and move to another town. Check a ride in one town, and
maybe on the way to the next town the truck hits a big pothole and something
breaks on the tilt-a-whirl.

But checking a new ride's engineering and design and construction ought to be
possible, just like checking that a building is up to code.

Of course, this is self-harming Kansas, so amusement rides are probably
checked by a poultry inspector, one day each month.

------
willglynn
From the indictment:

    
    
        19. HENRY and SCHOOLEY lacked the technical expertise to properly design a
            complex amusement ride such as Verrückt. Neither of the two men possessed any
            kind of technical or engineering credential relevant to amusement ride design or
            safety. As SCHOOLEY admitted, "If we actually knew how to do this, and it could
            be done that easily, it wouldn't be that spectacular."
    

Full text:

[http://www.kansascity.com/latest-
news/article206611679.ece/B...](http://www.kansascity.com/latest-
news/article206611679.ece/BINARY/Read%20the%20full%20Schlitterbahn%20corporation%20indictment)

~~~
itronitron
so basically, they were doing water slide _research_ instead of water slide
_engineering_

~~~
thisacctforreal
Water slide experimentation might be more apt.

Don't test in production. Or with human lives.

~~~
wolfgke
> Don't test in production. Or with human lives.

They surely tested it with their own life before. It worked. ;-)

------
walrus01
if you search "verruckt" on youtube there's a number of point-of-view camera
recordings of people riding the thing, before it was shut down.

reading the indictment, it seems like the general sort of design that _could_
be implemented safely if they had just hired a ride-engineer with expertise in
dynamic forces.

the main problem looks like they were sending rafts with unspecified weights
down the chute. overly light rafts would catch air on the second hill and slam
into the overhead netting (which is what killed the boy). secondary and
tertiary problems were poor raft design (see sections about other injuries to
riders) and insufficiently long run-out/braking area at the end.

the use of velcro as a restraint is scary as hell. particularly if you know
how quickly velcro wears out after several hundred attachments/detachment
cycles.

~~~
azernik
Another way of looking at it is that the main problem was putting netting
above the track; one roller-coaster engineering principle I've seen mentioned
that this ride broke was "no obstructions in the path of the rider" \-
catching air and slamming hard into the ground may have been _less_ dangerous
than hitting a hard overhead obstruction mid-air at high speed.

~~~
dawnerd
Yeah, when it first opened and I saw the netting... that was a huge red flag.
If you have to put netting up it's not safe end of story. The whole ride is
just a lesson in what not to do, and hopefully other parks will learn from it.

~~~
kazinator
... netting that is _held together with metal hoops, through which you 're
shooting at high speeds._

If that situation occurs for which the netting is there, it follows that the
riders are hitting those hoops at full speed at an oblique angle. You're not
going to somehow nicely land between those metal hoops and be caught just by
the netting alone. (If that were possible, it doesn't seem safe, either, for
that matter).

A much more appropriate restraint (if we can even discuss such a thing here)
would be for that section of the track to be a fully enclosed, _smooth_ tube.

~~~
dawnerd
Alternative would be a different track layout. Universal opened Volcano Bay
last year with an aqua coaster where it's pretty much impossible for the raft
to come up because it, surprise, uses upstops to prevent it from going
airborne.

Whats interesting, and where they probably for the idea for the netting (they
have one in the park): [https://www.whitewaterwest.com/products/master-
blaster/](https://www.whitewaterwest.com/products/master-blaster/)

~~~
crooked-v
The difference, of course, is that the netting in the image on that page
pretty obviously isn't meant to catch people. It's more likely there to keep
birds out or to keep somebody's phone or hat from shooting across the park at
high speeds, or just to keep idiots from intentionally climbing out of the
tube while it's elevated.

------
Arainach
A group of founders who wanted to move fast, ignore industry regulations that
they didn't personally understand the historical reason for, and chose to keep
pushing forward even when they realized they were doing unethical or illegal
things.....where have I heard that story before? I've heard such tactics
praised often enough here on Hacker News.

------
codezero
I was reading a story about how this was built by unqualified engineers and I
was really confused how that happened, but a quick summary:

The owners of this park have a long history of building and operating water
parks in general, with the specialty of "lazy river" type infinite pool rides.

This extreme ride is a very different piece of work and gets into the "roller
coaster" design which is a whole different piece of engineering.

~~~
TylerE
That's not really true.

They had been building and operating rides with similar mechanics (e.g. uphill
sections with boosters) for years.

They opened the original Master Blaster
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e2p6Qw4yIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e2p6Qw4yIE))
in 1996.

~~~
codezero
Fair point, I guess the question then remains: were they qualified to build
those either?

~~~
technofiend
I can only share my personal experience but I was lofted into the air and then
slammed down so hard I was worried for my safety on one of their rides in
Galveston. It's too bad they didn't swallow their pride and acknowledge the
fact they were successful enough that their newer rides needed engineering
oversight instead of layperson guesswork.

------
sbarre
Ugh, it says they rushed the design and build in order to impress a Travel
Channel show/producer..

(Not putting this at the feet of the TV channel, just so insanely wrong
priorities on the part of the park)

~~~
JBlue42
Seems similar to the one who shot and killed her boyfriend (husband?) in front
of their kid for a YouTube prank.

~~~
ada1981
Wait, what?

~~~
slavik81
They ran a YouTube channel. He convinced his girlfriend to shoot him with a
pistol while he held a thick book in front of himself, expecting the book to
stop the bullet. The book did not stop the bullet, and he died from the
gunshot wound. She pled guilty to manslaughter.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/us/youtube-shooting-
minne...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/us/youtube-shooting-minnesota-
guilty-plea.html)

~~~
ada1981
WTF.

This is strikingly familiar to something that happened to me as a kid, albeit
maybe an order of magnitude or two less serious.

My step mom wanted to feel the impact of my high powered paintball gun. So she
held up a cardboard pizza pox and asked me to shoot her.

I shot a few rounds which shred through the box and ended up cutting her
stomach.

------
some_random
Given that it killed someone in such a violent and (at least in retrospect)
predictable way, I would certainly hope that it failed to conform to "basic
design standards".

That said, this definitely falls into that insidious category of failures,
those that hurt people consistently, but not enough to raise any unlowerable
eyebrows. That is, until something like this happens, and someone dies.

~~~
Noumenon72
> Given that it killed someone in such a violent and (at least in retrospect)
> predictable way, I would certainly hope that it failed to conform to "basic
> design standards".

Why, some of them are built so the front kid doesn't fall off at all!

The front fell off:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM)

    
    
        well what sort of standards are these oil tankers built to?
        oh, very rigorous maritime engineering standards
        what sort of things?
        well the front's not supposed to fall off for a start
        what other things?
        well there are regulations governing the materials that they can be made of
        what materials?
        well cardboard's out
        and?
        no cardboard derivatives
        like paper?
        no paper, no string, no cello tape
        rubber?
        no, rubber's out, umm, they have to have a steering wheel, theres a minimum crew requirement
        whats the minimum crew?
        oh, 1 i suppose

------
txsh
If I’m reading this correctly, the ride opened in 2014 but the kid was
decapitated in 2016. So not only did they rush its construction but they had
two years to fix it and chose not to. Incredible.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Or, in two years, they never realized that they needed to fix it.

You decide whether that's better or worse...

~~~
Twirrim
two years, despite repeated reports of injuries, people reporting that they'd
lifted off the surface etc, among other warnings.

~~~
empath75
Which they covers up by altering the reports.

------
vkou
"I am afraid that this will have a chilling effect against innovation in this
area" is the sort of way that software engineers respond to similar problems
in their space.

We need to hold ourselves to at least this good a standard.

~~~
smitherfield
With notable exceptions (e.g. Therac-25, or self-driving cars) most of us have
the luxury of working in spaces where mistakes may be annoying or costly, but
not deadly.

------
badloginagain
Surprised the park hasn't gone totally bankrupt from the amount of class-
action suits available here.

~~~
djrogers
Class action? Who would be in the class other than the family of the deceased?

Anyone else who rode the ride without being harmed has no grounds to sue...

~~~
DFHippie
Apparently there were a lot of lesser injuries before this fatality.

------
rossdavidh
Wow. If there was any warning sign short of a dead customer that could have
persuaded them to not open/close down this ride, they had it. Repeatedly.

------
eh78ssxv2f
Does anybody know if there were any safety inspections of the park by the
city, state or federal bodies? If so, how did it pass the inspections?

~~~
gwbas1c
Usually city inspectors don't know enough to evaluate those kinds of things.

~~~
Johnny555
Which is why they require engineering signoff for things they can't evaluate
themselves. Try to replace a beam in your basement to create a longer span and
the building inspector isn't going to do load/span calculations himself, the
building department is going to require a PE to sign off on the design.

------
Deestan
In any discussion about regulations killing business dreams, remember that
this is the kind of business they are killing.

------
dandare
There is only one question that really matters in this story: will the
managers do serious jail time or not.

~~~
wolfgke
> There is only one question that really matters in this story: will the
> managers do serious jail time or not.

What problem is solved by serious jail time?

~~~
cryptonector
It's about deterrence. Make the next Schlitterbanh's owners think thrice about
safety and engineering.

~~~
wolfgke
> It's about deterrence. Make the next Schlitterbanh's owners think thrice
> about safety and engineering.

If the current owners of the water park had been afraid of jail, they would
not have built such a dangerous contraption.

If jail is supposed to be about deterrence, this gives a (Darwinian) advantage
to people who do not care about getting into jail. Is this what you desire?

~~~
cryptonector
> If the current owners of the water park had been afraid of jail, they would
> not have built such a dangerous contraption.

That's just silly. First, this case is being publicized. A light sentence will
not deter anyone watching, but a heavy one will, at least for as long as this
case is remembered -- if we have to do this again 20 years from now, so be it.
Second, that the owners/operators in this case were not deterred says nothing
about future potential owners/operators of similar attractions.

> If jail is supposed to be about deterrence, this gives a (Darwinian)
> advantage to people who do not care about getting into jail. Is this what
> you desire?

I don't follow. I think you're way oversimplifying things. Also, most people
don't want to go to jail, while the ones that don't care should land there
early and often and eventually for long, thus negating their "darwinian
advantage".

------
SolarNet
For a moment I thought "How to design slides" also on the front page was
referencing this.

------
jonhendry18
This quote from the responsible parties says it all:

"Obviously things do fall faster than Newton said."

------
gyrgtyn
No one from the state showed up and said "you can't let people ride that" ?

~~~
jonhendry18
It's Kansas.

