Executives in charge of a Kansas water park were charged in the death of a 10-year-old boy who was decapitated on a water slide in 2016.
Two designers of the water slide known as Verruckt, which means “insane” in German, will face second-degree murder charges in connection with the child’s death. Caleb Schwab, 10, the son of a Kansas Republican state lawmaker, died on the 17-story slide when the raft he was on went airborne and hit an overhead loop, killing him.
Indictments alleged that neither Henry and Schooley “possessed any kind of technical or engineering credential relevant to amusement ride design or safety.” And they conceived the Verruckt slide “in a spur-of-the-moment bid to impress producers of the Travel Channel’s Xtreme Waterparks series,” it added.
“If we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily,” Schooley apparently said of the ride, according to the documents. “It wouldn’t be that spectacular.”
“This indictment, as in the previous one related to Tyler Miles, is wrought with references to the outtakes of a dramatic, scripted television show, and filled with information that we fully dispute. Jeff Henry has designed waterpark rides the world over. Nearly every waterpark that exists today has an attraction or feature based on his designs or ideas,” she said. The statement added that “the accusation that we withheld information or altered evidence is completely false.”
She added: “We were shocked by the allegations being made by the Kansas Attorney General about Tyler and our KC park. The allegation that we operated, and failed to maintain, a ride that could foreseeably cause such a tragic accident is beyond the pale of speculation. Many of us, and our children and grandchildren, have ridden the ride with complete confidence as to its safety. Our operational mantra has been and will forever be Safety First.”
“Verrückt suffered from a long list of dangerous design flaws; however, the most obvious and potentially lethal flaw was that Verrückt’s design guaranteed that rafts would occasionally go airborne in a manner that could severely injure or kill the occupants,” according to the indictments, as NPR reported. Thirteen people were injured on the ride, according to the indictments, saying there were two concussions and another instance when a teen rider went temporarily blind.
The park closed the Verruckt ride after the boy’s death, and there are plans to demolish it. The Kansas City Star reported that the ride must remain standing amid the investigation.
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