This is horrifying. Supposed to be a press conference soon with more details. Rumors seem to indicate it happened on the Verrukt, the world's tallest waterslide.
A Schlitterbahn executive has been arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2016 death of Caleb Schwab on the Verruckt water slide.
The Wyandotte County Sheriff's Office booking log shows that Tyler Austin Miles, who is listed as an operations director for Schlitterbahn, was booked into the county jail Friday morning. He is being held on a $50,000 bond.
It's the first criminal charges to be filed in connection with Schwab's death on what had been billed as the world's largest water slide in 2016.
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Only happening because the father is a Kansas state representative. [Reply]
Originally Posted by alpha_omega:
Great...now could we please take the thing down. I hate seeing it.
The actually have been prevented from taking it down because of pending litigation. Essentially destroying evidence if they were to take it down. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chazno:
The actually have been prevented from taking it down because of pending litigation. Essentially destroying evidence if they were to take it down.
And you're not kidding. It's terrifying that these guys were even allowed to construct something like this in the first place let alone run it for a couple years. [Reply]
This guy didn't wake up in the morning thinking to himself, "I think I'll kill a kid on the water slide today."
But the negligence seems to be there.
But then again, put yourself in this guy's shoes for a second. You're a young guy, trying to make a career for yourself, and you've done pretty fucking good thus far – by all accounts. You're the D.O. for a HUGE waterpark and a multi billion dollar company. These guys see something in you, and they trust you. They've also just made a historic investment by building one of the world's largest water slides. THE largest, actually. And now they're expecting you to keep the ride, and the park, busy. You've gotta help the stakeholders pay for that ride, y'know? That's a lot of pressure for a 20-something year-old guy. You can either shut the ride down because people are getting hurt, or you can keep things rolling along as the brass would want.
I don't know what I would do in this situation, honestly.
Seems to me this kid's become the fall-guy for someone else's faulty design – and I don't feel like that's right. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chiefspants:
If the AG has a smoking gun, IE documentation that Miles knew there were serious design flaws/concerns and proceeded anyway, they definitely have a case.
It also makes me wonder if anyone higher up the ladder were aware of these issues. If I were running a big company, it wouldn't make sense to me to allow a branch to install a giant roller coaster without attaching the ****ing rafts and say "well, the director said it was safe, and I trust him!"
Unless the "facts" in the indictment aren't provable, heads are definitely going to roll over this. A quick summary of the things that stood out to me on a quick skim:
The two guys who were responsible for the design had no formal engineering training to design something like this. They also ignored a dozen different rules from the ASTM governing amusement park safety.
They rushed the design and build timeline in order to get publicity from the Travel Channel for it.
At least one builder warned them that the process was being rushed and that quality control was suffering for it. Also, an engineer took a look and made recommendations to improve safety, but none of those recommendations were implemented.
They ran software simulations to make sure the structure was sound, but they skipped running any simulations to see what would happen to passengers in different scenarios.
There were numerous reports of the raft going airborne even before they opened including about a dozen documented injuries.
The guy being singled out lied to detectives and tried to hide a bunch of operations reports that included all of the reports of issues with the ride by sending all of the documents to their main office in Texas.
Originally Posted by Strongside:
I'm kind of torn on this.
This guy didn't wake up in the morning thinking to himself, "I think I'll kill a kid on the water slide today."
But the negligence seems to be there.
But then again, put yourself in this guy's shoes for a second. You're a young guy, trying to make a career for yourself, and you've done pretty ****ing good thus far – by all accounts. You're the D.O. for a HUGE waterpark and a multi billion dollar company. These guys see something in you, and they trust you. They've also just made a historic investment by building one of the world's largest water slides. THE largest, actually. And now they're expecting you to keep the ride, and the park, busy. You've gotta help the stakeholders pay for that ride, y'know? That's a lot of pressure for a 20-something year-old guy. You can either shut the ride down because people are getting hurt, or you can keep things rolling along as the brass would want.
I don't know what I would do in this situation, honestly.
Seems to me this kid's become the fall-guy for someone else's faulty design – and I don't feel like that's right.
And him hiding all the complaints about the ride from the cops after a kid just died? [Reply]
Originally Posted by Strongside:
I'm kind of torn on this.
This guy didn't wake up in the morning thinking to himself, "I think I'll kill a kid on the water slide today."
But the negligence seems to be there.
But then again, put yourself in this guy's shoes for a second. You're a young guy, trying to make a career for yourself, and you've done pretty fucking good thus far – by all accounts. You're the D.O. for a HUGE waterpark and a multi billion dollar company. These guys see something in you, and they trust you. They've also just made a historic investment by building one of the world's largest water slides. THE largest, actually. And now they're expecting you to keep the ride, and the park, busy. You've gotta help the stakeholders pay for that ride, y'know? That's a lot of pressure for a 20-something year-old guy. You can either shut the ride down because people are getting hurt, or you can keep things rolling along as the brass would want.
I don't know what I would do in this situation, honestly.
Seems to me this kid's become the fall-guy for someone else's faulty design – and I don't feel like that's right.
I feel bad for the guy, sure, but if your job description starts with "ensure the safety of guests in the park," ignoring hundreds of safety reports for a ride is a pretty big no no. If there's evidence that he sent even one email to his bosses saying, "Hey, this seems like a bad idea. Should we take care of this thing?" then, yes, others might be responsible as well.
I do admit that I'm not sure why he's singled out while all of the other charges are just against Schlitterbahn as an entity. [Reply]
The allegations in that indictment are appalling. I can't even wrap my mind around the notion that the pricks that designed the ride had no engineering backgrounds. I mean, that's like a bunch of drunk rednecks yelling "Hey y'all, watch this!" only with somebody else's life on the line. These guys make the mayor from Jaws look responsible.
Originally Posted by Frazod:
The allegations in that indictment are appalling. I can't even wrap my mind around the notion that the pricks that designed the ride had no engineering backgrounds. I mean, that's like a bunch of drunk rednecks yelling "Hey y'all, watch this!" only with somebody else's life on the line. These guys make the mayor from Jaws look responsible.
Things like accident reports don't necessarily worry me, as well as many of the other claims. My guess is that a merry go round has accident reports attached to it. But the fact that there were no engineers involved in designing the thing? How does that even happen? I truly don't understand how a company could build something like that with no engineering testing. Is there a loophole in the regulations that allowed it? [Reply]
