Verruckt, where child died Sunday, operated with little government oversight

[marble falls]

Verruckt, where child died Sunday, operated with little government oversight

http://cjonline.com/news/2016-08-08/verruckt-where-child-died-sunday-operated-little-government-oversight?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=im#

Open records show no federal or state inspection of deadly slide

Posted: August 8, 2016 - 3:33pm

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This Nov. 2013 file photo shows Schlitterbahn's new Verruckt speed slide/water coaster in Kansas City, Kan. A 10-year-old boy died Sunday on the Kansas water slide that is billed as the world's largest, according to officials. Kansas City, Kan., police spokesman Officer Cameron Morgan said the boy died at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark, which is located about 15 miles west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Schlitterbahn spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said the child died on one of the park's main attractions, Verruckt, a 168-foot-tall water slide that has 264 stairs leading to the top.
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Patty Davis, press secretary for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said federal agencies have no jurisdiction to inspect or investigate stationary water parks.

“This is a fixed-site amusement park. We don’t have jurisdiction over that,” Davis said. “We only have jurisdiction over traveling sites.”

State regulations of water parks are guided by the Kansas Amusement Ride Act, which took effect in 2009. The law requires owners of amusement rides to conduct their own testing, post a certificate of inspection, retain inspection records and submit an annual itinerary to the Kansas Department of Labor.

Though KDOL has authority under the law to inspect amusement rides at random, there is no indication the state has inspected Verruckt in the two years since it opened.

Instead, Schlitterbahn was allowed to inspect its own rides to determine if they were safe.

An open records request for inspections at Schlitterbahn — filed by The Topeka Capital-Journal and answered by a KDOL attorney Monday morning — contains no state inspections of Verruckt. The only inspection reports provided by KDOL are from 2012, prior to Verruckt’s opening.

When a KDOL inspector visited the park in 2012, he was told by Schlitterbahn’s resident inspector that nondestructive testing — or NDT — data wasn’t available. Instead, the park was watching its rides to test their safety.

“In lieu of NDT, visual inspections are conducted annually and daily,” wrote Joe Montague, the KDOL inspector.

Since 2009, state law has required NDT testing for amusement rides in Kansas. As the Kansas Amusement Ride Act states, “No amusement ride shall be operated in this state unless nondestructive testing of the ride has been conducted.”

Montague’s inspection in the summer of 2012 is the last inspection KDOL conducted at Schlitterbahn, according to the state agency’s response to the open records request. Schlitterbahn is required to conduct daily inspections at the park but those inspections aren’t public records, according to KDOL staff attorney Heather Wilke.

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At first, Schlitterbahn required Verruckt riders to be 14 years old but that requirement was later dropped by Schlitterbahn’s owners, who believed it was unnecessary. Height and weight requirements were implemented instead.

The cause of Sunday’s accident is under investigation and the slide remains closed pending the results, as required by state law. If the water park’s operators are found to have violated the Kansas Amusement Ride Act by operating Verruckt without proper inspections, they could face misdemeanor charges, according to the state statute.

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[Peregrine Took]

1. Free enterprize despises regulations. Sadly, this is the outcome. n/t

[KT2000]

2. +1

[Ilsa]

3. Send Donald Trump to live in KS since

He now despises regulations. Ask him if he'd put his kid or grandkids on unregulated devices.

[matt819]

4. But

I know it's tempting to resort to knee jerk anti-corporate reactions. But think about it. It's in the parks best interests to ensure that the rides are safe. It's not like Monsanto telling us to trust them, when studies are unclear and long term effects not known. The park depends on the safety of its rides to ensure that people visit the park again. Even in the absence of sufficient state oversight, you can be pretty sure that the park does its best to ensure they if is safe. You couldn't hide multiple deaths and unsafe conditions.

[Throd]

5. You're right, but that won't get much traction around here.

[kestrel91316]

8. Short term profits are all they care about. They are gambling that they will get away with

negligence. Bigger profits over time are theirs if they bet correctly.

They lost the bet.

[gratuitous]

11. I'm familiar with this libertarian argument

But I have yet to see any solid evidence that what you say is true. As long as the profit margin is sufficient to cover losses due to injury or death, the park will stay open. If there's a catastrophic loss, like this one, the owners just dissolve the corporation, split any remaining assets, and anyone looking for financial compensation for their loss can spend their time on a fruitless search for liability insurance.

I wonder if the Kansas legislature will spend any time discussing remedial legislation in their next session? Magic 8 Ball says, "Outlook Hazy, Ask Again Later."

[marble falls]

12. Wasn't it in Ford's best interest to spend $50 a car and saves lives than let over 100 people burn..

to death in a Pinto?

[xmas74]

17. Except I know people personally who've been on it

And have reported they'd never do it again. They didn't post that yesterday -those reports have been since it opened. One old classmate reported her 14 yr old flew out of the harness when the ride had been open for a month. Others have reported that they had sore necks from being on the ride. One said, less than a month ago, that she pulled her family from the line when they saw the handles and harnesses were duct taped to stay together.

The ride has always been dangerous. A lack of maintenance doesn't help.

[JI7]

18. lol, people get selfish and short term profits matter more than anything and alter their thinking

convincing themselves that things are ok and they have done everything to justify the feel good easy money.

[Princess Turandot]

6. You can see it in Google Street View..

https://goo.gl/maps/NAvV4bgkJHS2

It's undated, but it looks like there was still some work being done at the 'exit' end of it.

[lapfog_1]

7. I watched a travel channel special on this ride

And when they first tested it with no netting, no safety harness to keep riders on the rafts, the rafts with test dummy (bags of sand, actually) kept getting airborne and flying off the track.

What I've read is that the day of the accident the velcro (yup, velcro) fastened safety harnesses kept failing and that would allow someone to get separated from the raft on the first nearly vertical drop. Especially someone that doesn't weigh very much. This kid maybe met a height requirement but not a weight requirement (I believe they ask you how much you weigh but possibly do not measure it). The netting placed over the track probably kept him from leaving the slide and hitting the ground, but it wouldn't stop the kid from hitting his head on the sides of the slide or perhaps just having a hard impact at the bottom if not in the raft.

In any event, it was a poorly designed slide (as noted by the many modifications made from the original installation including redoing the entire first drop to lessen the angle of attack, the addition of the netting and the velcro safety harness). All in an attempt to give people the free falling experience (which one can get with just about any bungee cord jump).

It is also possible that the kid undid the safety harness as the ride started, or that the operator didn't make sure the harness (seat belt) was secure before letting the kid go.

It's sad that it takes a death to fix these things... but in my view the ride should remain closed until a foolproof way is used to keep the rider in the raft and keep the raft in the slide.

[Kittycow]

10. Locals on Reddit

are saying the workers weigh the rider once at the bottom of the ride and once again at the top before anybody gets on.

However I just started reading over there so I don't know if Reddit info in a case like this is reliable or not.

[Avalux]

9. Is there evidence the ride malfunctioned?

I haven't seen any, so I'd rather not jump to conclusions that Schlitterbahn did something wrong. Either the ride was indeed faulty, or there was human error regarding use of the harness.

[xmas74]

16. I'm local (enough )

I've never done it but know plenty who have. I've heard complaints about their necks hurting afterwards, about people coming out of the Velcro and about actual duct tape used for every repair. One person posted last month that they saw the condition of the raft, duct taped every where including the Velcro harness, and chose to back out with her daughter and nephew. I remember her posting that day, warning people about it.

I told my teenager that she could ride it "over my dead body". I saw the safety videos and it never looked safe. Hell, that ride gave me the creeps every time I drove past the park.

[Initech]

13. 40 years of Reagan's no government government got us here.

[marble falls]

14. Bang on. How did people fall for the myth that governance is inheriently bad?

[Initech]

15. I don't know, but it's going to take decades to undo the damage.

I don't know if we'll ever see true government oversight and accountability return in my lifetime. The really sad thing is this accident could have been prevented if we had a government that actually functions as a government.