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Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

nytimes.com

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Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#41

Post by justherefortart »

duskwuff wrote: post #24
teraflop wrote: post #4

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 chang…

Holy shit. This is some Action Park [1] level irresponsibility here. A few other horrifying details: * Riders were restrained by Velcro straps. These frequently came loose. One rider broke several toes after his restraint came undone during a ride, forcing him to dig his feet into the corners of the raft. * The brake system on the ride was completely nonfunctional when the boy was killed, and had been that way for se…

My dad rode a cliffhanger type of slide at Action Park in the mid 80s. It had a plastic covering about 1/2 way down so you couldn't "fall off" the slide.

I'm still amazed to this day he did it because he's afraid of heights. It was easily 50' high. Fortunately, the only downside was it was like getting an enormous enema.

Those sled things that went down the concrete track, everyone has scars from those. Great memories but not remotely safe.

Great Adventure (Six Flags) wasn't as much fun but we all came back in one piece.

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#42

Post by hashbig »

djsumdog wrote: post #30
teraflop wrote: post #4

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 chang…

Society has moved into a dangerous position of rewarding people for extreme risk taking, so long as it pans out. I'm not saying this guy wasn't responsible. He totally was, but things like this are going to keep happening the more we encourage disastrous risks. They use to happen all the time before we started focusing on safety standards for cars. There's a great 99% Invisible episode about the shift from believing…

The solution is not stop encouraging people to take extreme risks, it's to stop encouraging them to take risk that put others, and not them, at risk (and punish them if they do so).

All of the great services and products we use today came from extreme risk taking, it's the corner stone of entrepreneurship.

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#43

Post by TylerE »

codezero wrote: post #6

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…

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) in 1996.

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#44

Post by empath75 »

Twirrim wrote: post #21
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, in two years, they never realized that they needed to fix it. You decide whether that's better or worse...

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

Which they covers up by altering the reports.

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#45

Post by the8472 »

teraflop wrote: post #4

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 chang…

> that have been defined in the industry that we couldn't find good reasons for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton%27...

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#46

Post by hashbig »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #31
Analemma_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move fast and break things!

This is why most of us aren't real engineers. When real engineers are sloppy people die. When we are sloppy, our industry leaders defend it as being 'pragmatic'.

It's Agile!

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#47

Post by codezero »

TylerE wrote: post #43
codezero wrote: post #6

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…

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 ) in 1996.

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

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#48

Post by Maybestring »

crazypyro wrote: post #32
teraflop wrote: post #4

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 chang…

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.

>Evidence suggests that the park planned to delay maintenance until the park closed for the season.

When a safety feature was out of service, they decided to keep running it. That sounds like a director of operations decison.

And much easier case to prove than design deficiency.

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#49

Post by bearcobra »

sparrish wrote: post #12
badloginagain wrote: post #2

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

This is in Kansas, where most folks aren't as sue-happy as the coasts of our country. Out here, if you get a minor injury, rub some dirt on it and treat it like a hill - get over it.

Based on the data from the National Center for State Courts, there doesn't appear to be much of a correlation between coastal proximity and the rate of civil cases. http://www.ncsc.org/Sitecore/Content/Microsites/PopUp/Home/C...

Re: Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

#50

Post by shock-value »

crazypyro wrote: post #40
empath75 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The father of the kid that died is a state legislator and he got a huge settlement.

Right. They settled for ~20 million shortly after it happened. The Kansas attorney general also took over the investigation. Still not understanding why the criminal indictment isn't for the designer or owner who are mentioned several times...

One of them seems to have also been arrested: http://www.kansascity.com/news/article206886324.html
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