Hi everyone, this is officially the current longest "What Really Happened" video! It also has the most animations, with over a day of render time. Moving forward you can now submit topics to be covered in this series using this form: forms.gle/ffnqo9aYMQPpPs429. Thanks for watching and supporting this channel, without you all these videos would not exist!
You are doing a good job explaining technical issues and facts related to these cases. You also explain things from a mechanical point of view. Plus, you know the right ways of keeping people safe thanks to being in the industry. That perspective is needed. I'm pretty sure you are the only person doing it. This offers a better understanding of what went wrong, and the steps needed to make sure it never happens again. I appreciate that you doing sensationalize injuries or deaths in your videos. Is there more context you could have offered? Sure. But, other theme park TH-cam Channels have covered it. Exhibition Theme Park has a video about this slide and Schlitterbahn's history, its designers, and the design choices that went into making the slide. You breaking down each accident and talking about what went wrong in design and daily operations is different, in a good way. Both perspectives are valuable. Having different ways of telling these stories is important. Being able to put information from multiple sources together to understand the situation better is a good thing. Doing so is up to the viewer. Keep doing what you do. (Ghost I hope this sounds like what I mean. Words are hard)
The fact it took almost 15 minutes to get to the actual accident breakdown because there were so many previous accidents and warning signs to go over is upsetting
"Was operating as normally as it was capable of doing" vs your normal verbiage at the start of the video. Oh man, you are NOT gonna go easy on these people behind the slide, and I am HERE for it.
It really is pointless for water parks to put weight restrictions on slides when the ride attendants are too spineless to tell people they’re too fat to ride. I can never enjoy the high dive at my public pool because despite it clearly saying 250lb max all over the ladder, the life guards always let +300lb land whales use it who then promptly snap the board with their massive girth. 🤦♂️
@@davemccage7918Exactly. I would never have gotten on that raft with an obese person. I’m careful with rafts and weight distribution. Had that woman never been on a seesaw? What a dumbas-.
@@Celatra But it’s no coincidence that the fatal ride involved an outrageous weight distribution. I’m always careful with weight distribution on rafts and I myself would have said no way to the heavy lady on my raft.
The fact that this death trap was allowed to continue operating despite having previously caused broken toes, concussions, blindness, spinal injuries, and ripping out somebody’s toenail is why I will never live in Kansas.
the ride was allowed to continue because, in a twist of absolutely cruel fate, the father of the child that passed was one of many politicians that voted against stricter theme park regulations
@@jojoslameerrand9305and there’s the thing: IF IT WASNT HIS SON, Scott Schwab probably wouldn’t care. He probably only cared because it *happened to him* and his family. Suddenly every child had to be in check at water parks. After years of de-regulation and mismanagement
It's outrageous that no one went to prison for this, so many glaring oversights on safety and it could've been easily avoided cause there were so many signs. I'm curious how the ride would've looked like if it had been done by a professional company and how close it would've resembled the final result. Good job on the animations 👏🏼
@@hellacia8151from what I understand the “designer” was sort of the black sheep of the family. Kind of like the “Frado” of the family. This thing was an abomination. It wasn’t even a water slide. It was technically a flume roller coaster and was very badly designed. The owner tried to pitch the idea to manufacturers but none of them were interested. They probably had a good reason.
This ride was like Action Park; designed & built by people who didn't know what they were doing, surprised after the first *several* cock-ups they didn't close it down
@@CoasterCollege Toe it's worse because this ONE RIDE is everything that was wrong with AP but with so much more negligence and one horrific death that ended it and never needed to happen.
this whole thing has always made me feel genuinely sick, this was deliberate malfeasance on the part of the park owners and it disgusts me that they faced no real consequences. the sheer amount of trauma involved is horrifying. (also, obviously not the most severe incident here, but as someone who's had several spinal injuries the thought of sustaining one while on an amusement ride is unbelievably awful, wow.) thanks for the high quality video as always.
The incident reports being hidden and altered is insane. Whoever did that should be facing serious jail time, they were complicit in all the injuries and the death.
To me (someone who doesn't know much at all about rides, ride operation, and how it's all supposed to work outside of this channel), this might be one of the most shockingly run rides I've seen you cover. The fact that the charges were dismissed is insane to me. People at the top clearly knew this was a very dangerous ride, they clearly went out of their way to hide the many serious accidents before this, seemingly no one had any clue whatsoever about how to maintain and safely operate the ride. It's like they were trying to kill someone. Another really good video by the way.
This is insane. 🤯 How did this design ever pass the drawing board? A metal cage to prevent people from being ejected but... it's clear people's heads are the first thing that will be hitting the cage as the raft goes airborne. Basically a cheese grater is supposed to keep people safe? This is one of the dumbest designs of any ride I've ever seen. 🤦🏼♀
@@CoasterCollege 💯 true. Even for in house design this just looks like a great way to kill off your own business and name in the industry from the start of the net install. Crazy things happen when greed is the fuel.
Unbelievable that no one went to prison. The use of tv show footage doesn't change the fact that the injury reports were covered up, and the rafts and slide weren't maintained properly. Passing the blame into the state's amusement ride safety outlines being "more guidelines than actual rules" is so slimy.
Based on the video this seems to be a case of prosecutor incompetence. It wasn't just that they used TV show footage but that they *cited* a compressed and dramatized (and therefore unreliable) TV show version of the events of the construction as evidence. They also focused on the wrong thing by leaning into the lack of ASTM compliance as if it constituted criminal behavior... which (unfortunately) it did not at the time in the state of Kansas. And because of this poor presentation, the defense were able to get the charges dropped. Which sucks. Had the prosecutors leaned harder on things like the covered-up incident reports and ignored recommendations, cited *reliable* records of the construction, and presented the lack of ASTM compliance as "It may not be criminal, but it certainly shows bad faith" things may have gone differently.
Because you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that crimes were committed under Kansas state law. Prosecutors being incompetent also helped. You can't charge crimes when the law doesn't make it illegal to begin with.
I remember this! I had always wanted to go to Schlitterbahn as a kid and even after this accident, I still kinda wanted to go. I do love the "it did not meet requirements, but at the time Kansas did not mandate it had to do it went ahead." I love how at every step it's like "Well, we need time to make this do-" "Okay, fine, let's skip that. We can make it. And just rush whatever company we make." "Your ride is unsafe. It should have a minimum age." "We will ignore that." "People could fly off and perish " "We added a net." "The net is unsafe and you need to do a lot more." "...Well, let's ignore that. Time to open!"
I cannot believe rafts appear to have regularly been slamming into the end of the run-out and people never considered that was an extremely obvious sign of dangerous speed (obviously, among other things. I hadn’t heard about the run-out collisions before so it really stuck with me after this video)
amazingly done!! this park wasn't super far from me (though WoF feels closer). my brother-in-law rode the Veruckt before this happened. in retrospect, it's wild the ride was open and running as long as it was. I saved the court papers as soon as I heard they were available.
Why on earth did they put netting around the track to keep the raft from flying away? Did the engineers not account for the fact that there would be people in the raft?
I am glad you didn’t use the photos from the investigation. I myself have seen them and it’s awful. Thank you for not sensationalizing this, because it definitely has been in the past
Wow! What an episode! It’s amazing how this ride was allowed to continue to operate given all of the incidents, leading up to the child’s fatal accident. Seeing water slides here reminds me of the several times I went to a water/slide park in Greensboro NC in the mid-1990s. Back then, riders had a simple flat mat to ride down, which still made for a thrilling ride. Perhaps simpler is better, when it comes to water park flume rides. However, human greed seems to once again be the culprit behind all of these incidents.
I remember that video from the designers that had the trial and error process. It was disgusting how they had a "highlight reel" of all the times the raft flew off the hill as if it was funny and cool.
Well informed and great 3D visuals man! I’ve been looking forward to this video coming out for awhile. I remember my rides on Verruckt in 2014. Looking back now, I can’t believe this thing ever existed! Schlitterbahn has been completely leveled now, and new retail shops are going in its place.
So we're ALL sitting here going "just get rid of boat B" the entire time, right? It wouldn't have fixed anything else about the ride, but maybe no one would've died.
If they kept the ride open without the problematic boat, an accident would have occured sooner or later anyways. And the ride was deteriorating fast, who knows how many more injuries would have happened before something failed catastrophically
@@AVdE10000 Oh, I'm sure an accident would've occurred either way, I'm just saying that it could've prevented that accident being the death of a child.
I can't believe Verruckt was built the way it was. It doesn't take much common sense to realize that building the ride in house is a bad idea. Also, the fact that Raft B had so many issues and the operators didn't remove it from service is beyond stupid. Though water slides with airtime hills definitely can work, it's probably not smart to put one on the world's tallest water slide. Beyond that, I can't believe they didn't 100% make sure the speed control measures worked. Building and designing amusement rides is far from easy, but it doesn't take much common sense to realize that Verruckt had problems that needed fixing.
I mean, people did keep pulling it from service... but it kept getting put back in. What someone really needed to do was "accidentally" damage it beyond repair.
Usually the next hill has to be a bit less taller so the raft doesn’t over shoot it. But they needed so much braking to slow it down that was a sign this wouldn’t end well.
have been following you for a while and this is your best video yet. i knew about the fatal incident but had no idea there was so much backstory to it!
I knew the story behind this accident (negligence), so when I heard your "Was operating as normally as it was capable of doing" I was like "Yep, we're going straight to the point on this one, good".
I’m still just really curious as to the possible reasons why one particular raft would go faster than the others and if they found that out during investigation.
Thank you for covering all the other accidents that had happened before hand. Everyone else focuses on the big incident, but to know all the small details (about Raft B, and the braking system failing) is very interesting and something I didn't know about.
Fun fact, that block is not actually there on the real slide, it was added to make the animation simpler. The real ride has a wall the curved to the right to send rafts to a conveyor that raised rafts back to the start of the ride.
So the slide was not only poorly designed, it was *also* very poorly *maintained* as well….if it was ever maintained or repaired at all. This lack of maintenance, especially on the mat braking system, was probably the second most significant factor in Caleb Schwab’s death…second only to the fact that the ride was a poorly designed death trap in the first place.
Good Lord, every single report where theyre like "yeah, there's a severe issue. There's an issue. There's an issue." And the park director was just going "eh, but money." You can just imagine the young adults working there witnessing issues, reporting it, and being dismissed again and again. Like imagine knowing there's like an issue, and maybe you do try to stop using it and your boss goes above you and goes "don't care, keep using this really dangerous raft."
The park owners had to have sold their souls to get that ride thru all the inspections, so Raft B's unexplained malfunctions make for a great hook for a possessed water ride horror story. It just takes a story about recycled parts to be able to set it anywhere.
As bad as airborne rafts sound, TONS of group raft slides send a portion of their rafts into the air. I’ve seen and been on a few family raft rides and two person tube slides where the tube caught air. I’ve even seen some examples on TH-cam where, after a hill or as a drop occurred, the raft and people landed near the bottom of the hill. It’s wild that these can operate. It’s even more inconceivable that the park owners here installed a net that would absolutely guarantee serious injury. Using a design that would grab onto riders, forcing their bodies to stop immediately, is just unbelievable
Genuinely the side view of this slide looks like the “euthanasia coaster” art project someone made years ago. This is action park stuff, it’s so wild how water parks just do not apparently get the same attention that parks with roller coasters and the like do. Edit: the fact the victim who died was the son of a state legislator who later became Secretary of State in Kansas, and those responsible still didn’t go to jail, is WILD.
The netting is insane. At no point on the ride could it make anything safe for riders. If they somehow were held in on the drop, they would just tumble down the drop. If they were ejected like this the only outcome was to keep riders on the slide by slamming them into it. There was no common sense in building this thing, and it's tragic.
Each time I watch a new breakdown of this accident, the worse it gets. People (rightfully) talk about how unsafe Action Park was but there's just something about this that's so much worse to me given the details of the construction and how it becomes VERY clear this was 100% about pointless publicity and record breaking.😊 This thing may have had more accidents than some of the more infamous AP rides yet THEY KEPT IT OPEN.
@@Robbedem VERY true. Action Park SOLD ITSELF on how 'you can do anything you want!' it was compared to other parks which often did lead to people doing things they shouldn't do because at normal parks, they would have gotten kicked out. This was a park that people wouldn't have viewed as like Action Park as people rightfully think that era is over, with more precautions and safty measures put in not just with the basic functions of the park but the designs of the rides as well. They should have shut the ride down long before the incident but didn't.
I remember watching the Xtreme Waterparks episode on Verrückt. The Schlitterbahn owners were trying to be the wild west cowboys of the water slide industry.
I can't believe nobody went to prison for this. the accident reports being altered should be a crime in itself. I did not realize that it had that many accidents before that poor kid got killed
Im from New Braunfels, home of the original schlitterbahn, and the incident was quite a shock with the locals. I remembered it being shared by some family online. Schlitterbahn was a big deal to the town and helped bring in a lot of tourists to the area along with the river it feeds off from as well. Thank you for sharing this, while the incident showed how dangerous the ride was but i didnt realize just how truely dangerous it was, feels like it was only a fraction of the true horror of the ride
Seriously. I can't fathom witnessing this from any perspective, let alone a rider. But what if you were at the bottom waiting? Straight out of a horror movie.
@@Crocogator I always thought about the perspective from the bottom. Or from the very top, as the employee running the slide (or the next people in line...)
If the big issue was the risk of rafts or passengers flying off the slide...why not just raise the sides higher? Also putting the lightest passenger in the front was kind of stupid, since the front is what would lift if a vehicle goes over a crest.
I had no idea this was an in-house design, and that makes this entire situation even tragic. These designers knew they were taking massive risks and then still decided to gamble with people’s lives. The designers and operations director displayed such gross negligence throughout the entire existence of this ride, and for what? Sunken cost fallacy? This likely could have been avoided if ANY of the decision makers of this ride acted responsibly.
@@CoasterCollege I’m really glad to hear that! It’s an accident that truly rocked me to my core, and it’s time it was explained correctly and in a just way. There was a coroners inquest into the accident as well which illuminated a lot of details. Thank you for all the hard work you put into your videos!
Something that I kept thinking about throughout the video is why are they putting the lightest passenger up front when there's a risk of going airborne? Wouldn't the smart choice be to balance the weight? The set up here puts all the weight at the back which would cause the front to go further upward if the raft goes airborne. I'm assuming it has something to do with the first descent though as that weight balance would cause issues there.
and this is wy the prosecution needs to make sure their Is are dotted and Ts crossed, because otherwise obviously guilty people get off on a technicality. Luckily new laws are in place to hopefully prevent htis from happening again, but shame on the Kansas DAs for dropping the ball.
How the hell was this allowed to happen. I have seen many videos about this incident but none as in-depth and shocking as to how unsafe it was as this one, well done!
The number of things in the world that happen because someone thought “oh that flag is red, let’s hide it” instead of “that flag is red, let’s fix it” is wild
I knew about the “big” accident that happened on Verruckt that tragically claimed the life of a young boy. But I had no idea of all these other incidents that happened before that one.
Jesus... This is like every if single slingshot accident happened on the same ride... This is a story of irresponsibility from the beginning to the tragic end. How this was ever allowed at all is completely beyond me.
Sickening that the higher ups at the park knew the ride was unsafe and were doctoring and destroying incident reports to cover it up so they could keep it running. Guest safety should be every park's highest priority
I grew up about 5 minutes from this slide, so I watched the thing be built. I was the same age as Caleb when this happened, meaning he would be a senior in highschool this year. I asked my mom like 80 times if we could go on this slide and she said no and I'm so happy that I never got the chance to go. This was such a tragic accident and I watched it be ripped down and abandonded, I only went a few times but knowing its gone still kinda hurts.
I was injured by a water coaster as a kid, at great wolf lodge in Cincinnati. After the drop there was a huge splash of water that hit me in the face and bloodied my nose. Unlike this park though they seemed very concerned and the coaster actually ended up being taken down a few years later
Longest one so far for a reason, that's a long ass list of injuries. I remember hearing about this years ago, the name was so familiar, I had no clue that many incidents occurred. But hey I love these videos of accidents and in this case pure negligence, have for years. If it pleases and sparkles do you think you'd feel up to tackling feats of engineering in the industry as well, or evolutions of certain functions like launch, brakes, and lift hills?
The series of excerpts from maintenance reports about boat b going too fast in the days leading up to the accident was genuinely harrowing. They were well aware of the problems and just didn’t do anything about it.
The idea initially was good, but how they went about to making it, how they ignored warnings and risks, and then how they kept repeating mistakes was the downfall. This could have been an amazing ride, but the entire thing was doomed from the start due to everything being thrown out the window.
the fact that the state can ignore the rules made by the ASTM. that’s so out of order. i hope that’s no longer the case and that they have to follow the rules
Just about everything with this video is amazing except the people models. I liked the articulated mannequin style ones more, as they don’t look as much like bald, creepy, eyeless buff men, even as children.
I always had a bad feeling about this ride. I don’t know why but from the day it opened something was telling me that a major injury or death was going to happen on this ride and it wouldn’t be very long until said incident happened. Unfortunately I was right.
The more I learn about this incident, the angrier I get. I think the absolute genesis of this horrible tragedy is that someone thought that _airtime on a waterslide_ would be fun and not ever painful. Then when they built it they tried everything they could so it *would not produce airtime*. They were told to strap humans into the seats so they wouldn't go airborne, even though the rafts were not connected to the trough and were consistently going airborne. It wasn't a rare thing. The most dangerous thing on a waterslide of any kind is to _not be in contact with the slide and the moving water._ It's the equivalent to a roller-coaster coming off the tracks. I had never heard that they had rafts hit the wall at the end of the runout trough that was deep and supposed to slow them down. Water is "sticky" and reduces inertia really well when something is at least partially submerged in it. That means that a raft with the correct weight but light in front could _hydroplane_ and be skimming over the water if the runout trough failed to stop it within the predicted length. THEN their idea for backup safety was to surround the slide with what is essentially a metal slinky and netting so when the ride DID AS KNOWN AND EXPECTED go airborne, they only had a few feet of clearance to "head choppers" that were literal instead of roller-coaster figurative. OVER THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE SLIDE. They didn't want the rafts to exit the trough, and that certainly would prevent a raft from falling...how did they not think one chess move ahead to realizing the netting and slinky would stop a raft but also CHEESE GRATE HUMAN BODIES AT THE HIGH SPEED THEY DESIGNED THIS SLIDE TO ACCOMPLISH. Accidents do happen, but they were given so much professional and experiential data of the danger it was an extremely preventable accident.
Hi everyone, this is officially the current longest "What Really Happened" video! It also has the most animations, with over a day of render time. Moving forward you can now submit topics to be covered in this series using this form: forms.gle/ffnqo9aYMQPpPs429. Thanks for watching and supporting this channel, without you all these videos would not exist!
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Over a day well worth it. Looks great!
Thanks for the new vid, i love these technical breakdowns and your factual style!
You are doing a good job explaining technical issues and facts related to these cases. You also explain things from a mechanical point of view. Plus, you know the right ways of keeping people safe thanks to being in the industry. That perspective is needed. I'm pretty sure you are the only person doing it. This offers a better understanding of what went wrong, and the steps needed to make sure it never happens again. I appreciate that you doing sensationalize injuries or deaths in your videos.
Is there more context you could have offered? Sure. But, other theme park TH-cam Channels have covered it. Exhibition Theme Park has a video about this slide and Schlitterbahn's history, its designers, and the design choices that went into making the slide. You breaking down each accident and talking about what went wrong in design and daily operations is different, in a good way. Both perspectives are valuable. Having different ways of telling these stories is important.
Being able to put information from multiple sources together to understand the situation better is a good thing. Doing so is up to the viewer.
Keep doing what you do.
(Ghost I hope this sounds like what I mean. Words are hard)
I wish this was a real series on Netflix with an insane production budget, that would go so crazy
The fact it took almost 15 minutes to get to the actual accident breakdown because there were so many previous accidents and warning signs to go over is upsetting
Yeah, pretty wild accident that got crazier the more I found out.
"Was operating as normally as it was capable of doing" vs your normal verbiage at the start of the video. Oh man, you are NOT gonna go easy on these people behind the slide, and I am HERE for it.
14:59 you know this truly is a special episode when the ride was NOT operating normally
covered in warning signs, to boot.
It’s insane how Raft B had so many incidents, yet they still used it. They literally knew that it was running too fast, they just didn’t care.
And changed reports so they knew it was wrong.
It really is pointless for water parks to put weight restrictions on slides when the ride attendants are too spineless to tell people they’re too fat to ride. I can never enjoy the high dive at my public pool because despite it clearly saying 250lb max all over the ladder, the life guards always let +300lb land whales use it who then promptly snap the board with their massive girth. 🤦♂️
@@davemccage7918 the raft ran too fast even without overweight people. the slide was dangerous as it is.
@@davemccage7918Exactly. I would never have gotten on that raft with an obese person. I’m careful with rafts and weight distribution. Had that woman never been on a seesaw? What a dumbas-.
@@Celatra But it’s no coincidence that the fatal ride involved an outrageous weight distribution. I’m always careful with weight distribution on rafts and I myself would have said no way to the heavy lady on my raft.
The fact that this death trap was allowed to continue operating despite having previously caused broken toes, concussions, blindness, spinal injuries, and ripping out somebody’s toenail is why I will never live in Kansas.
the ride was allowed to continue because, in a twist of absolutely cruel fate, the father of the child that passed was one of many politicians that voted against stricter theme park regulations
@@jojoslameerrand9305and there’s the thing: IF IT WASNT HIS SON, Scott Schwab probably wouldn’t care. He probably only cared because it *happened to him* and his family. Suddenly every child had to be in check at water parks. After years of de-regulation and mismanagement
Its why Kansas City, Kansas is the worse Kansas City
Hey man don't knock Kansas we're just a little dumb....... actually nvm i get it 😢
And tornados
It's outrageous that no one went to prison for this, so many glaring oversights on safety and it could've been easily avoided cause there were so many signs. I'm curious how the ride would've looked like if it had been done by a professional company and how close it would've resembled the final result. Good job on the animations 👏🏼
I think the owner/designer actually did go to prison at some point, but on drug charges. Them Park Expedition covers more on what happened to him.
@@hellacia8151 yes I watched that one too he did go to prison because of drugs but nothing related to this
@@hellacia8151from what I understand the “designer” was sort of the black sheep of the family. Kind of like the “Frado” of the family. This thing was an abomination. It wasn’t even a water slide. It was technically a flume roller coaster and was very badly designed. The owner tried to pitch the idea to manufacturers but none of them were interested. They probably had a good reason.
No one ever goes to prison over these accidents.
"... was operating as normally as it was capable of doing"
Oh boy, when you hear that you know you're in for some trouble 💀
Thank you for not showing the actual footage of the aftermath. It's completely disturbing and upsetting.
I'm glad you feel that way, no point for it to be shared.
@@CoasterCollege yet, others have! Thanks again.
@@LittleMissLion wussy
@@Random_Eebsbait
@@WhiteWolf-lm7gj literally isn’t dawg
This ride was like Action Park; designed & built by people who didn't know what they were doing, surprised after the first *several* cock-ups they didn't close it down
Reading everything about it reminded me a lot of action park.
What is Action Park?
@@MJLover100 It was a water park in New Jersey that was infamous for the number of accidents it had and for its poorly designed & built rides.
@@CoasterCollege Toe it's worse because this ONE RIDE is everything that was wrong with AP but with so much more negligence and one horrific death that ended it and never needed to happen.
When Coaster College says a ride was operating “as normally as it was capable of doing,” you know you’re in for one
this whole thing has always made me feel genuinely sick, this was deliberate malfeasance on the part of the park owners and it disgusts me that they faced no real consequences. the sheer amount of trauma involved is horrifying. (also, obviously not the most severe incident here, but as someone who's had several spinal injuries the thought of sustaining one while on an amusement ride is unbelievably awful, wow.) thanks for the high quality video as always.
The incident reports being hidden and altered is insane. Whoever did that should be facing serious jail time, they were complicit in all the injuries and the death.
To me (someone who doesn't know much at all about rides, ride operation, and how it's all supposed to work outside of this channel), this might be one of the most shockingly run rides I've seen you cover. The fact that the charges were dismissed is insane to me. People at the top clearly knew this was a very dangerous ride, they clearly went out of their way to hide the many serious accidents before this, seemingly no one had any clue whatsoever about how to maintain and safely operate the ride. It's like they were trying to kill someone.
Another really good video by the way.
Based on what was told in the video, the prosecution dropped the ball really hard.
"operating as normally as it was capable of"
He couldn't even say the thing. Oh no
I’ll say it again, fat people and amusement rides do NOT mix well… 😑
the fact that this slide was able to continue operations after so many previous incidents is crazy to me honestly
Ikr? Crazy😮
This is insane. 🤯
How did this design ever pass the drawing board? A metal cage to prevent people from being ejected but... it's clear people's heads are the first thing that will be hitting the cage as the raft goes airborne. Basically a cheese grater is supposed to keep people safe? This is one of the dumbest designs of any ride I've ever seen. 🤦🏼♀
It's easy to get past the drawing board when there is no drawing board.
@@CoasterCollege 💯 true. Even for in house design this just looks like a great way to kill off your own business and name in the industry from the start of the net install. Crazy things happen when greed is the fuel.
Lessoned learned going with a trusted manufacturer!
Unbelievable that no one went to prison. The use of tv show footage doesn't change the fact that the injury reports were covered up, and the rafts and slide weren't maintained properly. Passing the blame into the state's amusement ride safety outlines being "more guidelines than actual rules" is so slimy.
Based on the video this seems to be a case of prosecutor incompetence. It wasn't just that they used TV show footage but that they *cited* a compressed and dramatized (and therefore unreliable) TV show version of the events of the construction as evidence. They also focused on the wrong thing by leaning into the lack of ASTM compliance as if it constituted criminal behavior... which (unfortunately) it did not at the time in the state of Kansas. And because of this poor presentation, the defense were able to get the charges dropped. Which sucks.
Had the prosecutors leaned harder on things like the covered-up incident reports and ignored recommendations, cited *reliable* records of the construction, and presented the lack of ASTM compliance as "It may not be criminal, but it certainly shows bad faith" things may have gone differently.
Because you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that crimes were committed under Kansas state law. Prosecutors being incompetent also helped. You can't charge crimes when the law doesn't make it illegal to begin with.
I remember this! I had always wanted to go to Schlitterbahn as a kid and even after this accident, I still kinda wanted to go.
I do love the "it did not meet requirements, but at the time Kansas did not mandate it had to do it went ahead."
I love how at every step it's like "Well, we need time to make this do-"
"Okay, fine, let's skip that. We can make it. And just rush whatever company we make."
"Your ride is unsafe. It should have a minimum age."
"We will ignore that."
"People could fly off and perish "
"We added a net."
"The net is unsafe and you need to do a lot more."
"...Well, let's ignore that. Time to open!"
The fact that the title of this video says EVERY accident and not THE accident says a lot about the park’s standards.
I cannot believe rafts appear to have regularly been slamming into the end of the run-out and people never considered that was an extremely obvious sign of dangerous speed (obviously, among other things. I hadn’t heard about the run-out collisions before so it really stuck with me after this video)
I cannot believe their were so many accidents before the fatal one! I don't understand how they thought it was okay to keep operating this ride!
amazingly done!! this park wasn't super far from me (though WoF feels closer). my brother-in-law rode the Veruckt before this happened. in retrospect, it's wild the ride was open and running as long as it was. I saved the court papers as soon as I heard they were available.
Did your brother-in-law feel that the ride was safe?
Seconding Jillousa’s question and also saying as someone who once lived in Missouri, I stan Worlds of Fun forever.
Oh wow! These renders turned out so good, great work man!!
Thanks a ton!
How the hell did someone FALSIFY documents about accidents and not go to prison? Hopefully this video may at least bring some attention to the events
Because when you're rich enough to hire lawyers, or have a company to get blamed instead, laws don't touch you in the us
“As normally as it was capable of doing” is a crazy way to start a What Really Happened
Yes!! I’ve always known about the one major incident but all the other videos really only focus on that one, top tier video as always dude!!!
Glad you enjoyed!
Why on earth did they put netting around the track to keep the raft from flying away? Did the engineers not account for the fact that there would be people in the raft?
They used the same trick RCT2 players use for the dinghy slide
@@PhoenixRoseYT lmao
I mean, it worked. Nobody fell from the top of the hill....
@@hanthonycthey didn’t. Because there weren’t any ride design engineers
There were no engineers.
Fantastic job on the animations. Really enhances what you’re saying.
Thank you, I'm glad they helped!!
I am glad you didn’t use the photos from the investigation. I myself have seen them and it’s awful. Thank you for not sensationalizing this, because it definitely has been in the past
Most excellent reporting. I followed this tragedy, but had no idea how many incidents there were. That poor little boy died so needlessly.
Wow! What an episode! It’s amazing how this ride was allowed to continue to operate given all of the incidents, leading up to the child’s fatal accident.
Seeing water slides here reminds me of the several times I went to a water/slide park in Greensboro NC in the mid-1990s. Back then, riders had a simple flat mat to ride down, which still made for a thrilling ride. Perhaps simpler is better, when it comes to water park flume rides. However, human greed seems to once again be the culprit behind all of these incidents.
I remember that video from the designers that had the trial and error process. It was disgusting how they had a "highlight reel" of all the times the raft flew off the hill as if it was funny and cool.
Well informed and great 3D visuals man! I’ve been looking forward to this video coming out for awhile. I remember my rides on Verruckt in 2014. Looking back now, I can’t believe this thing ever existed! Schlitterbahn has been completely leveled now, and new retail shops are going in its place.
Always appreciate your vids, too many are out there making up or spreading misinformation about these accidents. It's so nice to just get the facts!
Thank you for such a detailed and descriptive video while not needing to dramatize or show real footage!
You are so welcome!
So we're ALL sitting here going "just get rid of boat B" the entire time, right? It wouldn't have fixed anything else about the ride, but maybe no one would've died.
If they kept the ride open without the problematic boat, an accident would have occured sooner or later anyways. And the ride was deteriorating fast, who knows how many more injuries would have happened before something failed catastrophically
@@AVdE10000 Oh, I'm sure an accident would've occurred either way, I'm just saying that it could've prevented that accident being the death of a child.
I can't believe Verruckt was built the way it was. It doesn't take much common sense to realize that building the ride in house is a bad idea. Also, the fact that Raft B had so many issues and the operators didn't remove it from service is beyond stupid. Though water slides with airtime hills definitely can work, it's probably not smart to put one on the world's tallest water slide. Beyond that, I can't believe they didn't 100% make sure the speed control measures worked. Building and designing amusement rides is far from easy, but it doesn't take much common sense to realize that Verruckt had problems that needed fixing.
I mean, people did keep pulling it from service... but it kept getting put back in. What someone really needed to do was "accidentally" damage it beyond repair.
Usually the next hill has to be a bit less taller so the raft doesn’t over shoot it. But they needed so much braking to slow it down that was a sign this wouldn’t end well.
I had no idea there were so many incidents before the fatal one. This ride truly was a tragedy waiting to happen.
have been following you for a while and this is your best video yet. i knew about the fatal incident but had no idea there was so much backstory to it!
Thank you!
0:11 “as normally as capable” 💀
I like the upped production quality with the animation.
Thanks for noticing!!!
"As normally as it was capable of doing" is such a scary line.
I knew the story behind this accident (negligence), so when I heard your "Was operating as normally as it was capable of doing" I was like "Yep, we're going straight to the point on this one, good".
I’m still just really curious as to the possible reasons why one particular raft would go faster than the others and if they found that out during investigation.
if reports were being hid/tossed, it's impossible to know for sure
I'm just curious about how many rafts there was for that ride
Just a guess, it may have had the insert built heavier than the others.
Thank you for covering all the other accidents that had happened before hand. Everyone else focuses on the big incident, but to know all the small details (about Raft B, and the braking system failing) is very interesting and something I didn't know about.
Glad I could help present some forgotten information!
What have we learnt? The conrete block at the end of the runout was the most durable part of the entire ride 😂😂😂
Fun fact, that block is not actually there on the real slide, it was added to make the animation simpler. The real ride has a wall the curved to the right to send rafts to a conveyor that raised rafts back to the start of the ride.
@@CoasterCollege Oh damn, I can only imagine the injuries caused
So the slide was not only poorly designed, it was *also* very poorly *maintained* as well….if it was ever maintained or repaired at all.
This lack of maintenance, especially on the mat braking system, was probably the second most significant factor in Caleb Schwab’s death…second only to the fact that the ride was a poorly designed death trap in the first place.
Good Lord, every single report where theyre like "yeah, there's a severe issue. There's an issue. There's an issue." And the park director was just going "eh, but money."
You can just imagine the young adults working there witnessing issues, reporting it, and being dismissed again and again. Like imagine knowing there's like an issue, and maybe you do try to stop using it and your boss goes above you and goes "don't care, keep using this really dangerous raft."
The park owners had to have sold their souls to get that ride thru all the inspections, so Raft B's unexplained malfunctions make for a great hook for a possessed water ride horror story. It just takes a story about recycled parts to be able to set it anywhere.
Nice job with the animations. Always enjoy the what really happened series.
Glad you like them!
As bad as airborne rafts sound, TONS of group raft slides send a portion of their rafts into the air. I’ve seen and been on a few family raft rides and two person tube slides where the tube caught air. I’ve even seen some examples on TH-cam where, after a hill or as a drop occurred, the raft and people landed near the bottom of the hill. It’s wild that these can operate. It’s even more inconceivable that the park owners here installed a net that would absolutely guarantee serious injury. Using a design that would grab onto riders, forcing their bodies to stop immediately, is just unbelievable
Amazing video! Subbed
Genuinely the side view of this slide looks like the “euthanasia coaster” art project someone made years ago. This is action park stuff, it’s so wild how water parks just do not apparently get the same attention that parks with roller coasters and the like do.
Edit: the fact the victim who died was the son of a state legislator who later became Secretary of State in Kansas, and those responsible still didn’t go to jail, is WILD.
Would love to see you cover more water rides
I would love to cover more!
The netting is insane. At no point on the ride could it make anything safe for riders. If they somehow were held in on the drop, they would just tumble down the drop. If they were ejected like this the only outcome was to keep riders on the slide by slamming them into it. There was no common sense in building this thing, and it's tragic.
Each time I watch a new breakdown of this accident, the worse it gets.
People (rightfully) talk about how unsafe Action Park was but there's just something about this that's so much worse to me given the details of the construction and how it becomes VERY clear this was 100% about pointless publicity and record breaking.😊
This thing may have had more accidents than some of the more infamous AP rides yet THEY KEPT IT OPEN.
at least with action park it was obvious and more a "at your own risk" situation.
@@Robbedem VERY true. Action Park SOLD ITSELF on how 'you can do anything you want!' it was compared to other parks which often did lead to people doing things they shouldn't do because at normal parks, they would have gotten kicked out.
This was a park that people wouldn't have viewed as like Action Park as people rightfully think that era is over, with more precautions and safty measures put in not just with the basic functions of the park but the designs of the rides as well. They should have shut the ride down long before the incident but didn't.
I remember watching the Xtreme Waterparks episode on Verrückt. The Schlitterbahn owners were trying to be the wild west cowboys of the water slide industry.
i lived in kansas city during 2016, we never went here and called it "shitterbahn"
I can't believe nobody went to prison for this. the accident reports being altered should be a crime in itself. I did not realize that it had that many accidents before that poor kid got killed
This is some RollerCoaster Tycoon insanity. I can't believe this was allowed to remain open as long as it was.
Im from New Braunfels, home of the original schlitterbahn, and the incident was quite a shock with the locals. I remembered it being shared by some family online. Schlitterbahn was a big deal to the town and helped bring in a lot of tourists to the area along with the river it feeds off from as well. Thank you for sharing this, while the incident showed how dangerous the ride was but i didnt realize just how truely dangerous it was, feels like it was only a fraction of the true horror of the ride
And I thought the loop slide at Action Park was irresponsible.
Park operations director should have been jailed!
No matter how many times I see it, I always hope the adults were too concussed to remember
Seriously. I can't fathom witnessing this from any perspective, let alone a rider. But what if you were at the bottom waiting?
Straight out of a horror movie.
@@Crocogator I always thought about the perspective from the bottom. Or from the very top, as the employee running the slide (or the next people in line...)
@@hanthonyc elevator scene from the Shining.
@Crocogator his brother saw the whole thing. He went down on a different raft and was waiting for his brother. 😢
Schlitterbahn was extra negligent in Kansas. For it to go this far, that negligence was purposeful.
If the big issue was the risk of rafts or passengers flying off the slide...why not just raise the sides higher?
Also putting the lightest passenger in the front was kind of stupid, since the front is what would lift if a vehicle goes over a crest.
I had no idea this was an in-house design, and that makes this entire situation even tragic. These designers knew they were taking massive risks and then still decided to gamble with people’s lives. The designers and operations director displayed such gross negligence throughout the entire existence of this ride, and for what? Sunken cost fallacy? This likely could have been avoided if ANY of the decision makers of this ride acted responsibly.
Really well done video. Would you consider doing a similar what really happened style video on the Dream world thunder river rapids ride?
That is high up on my list, I would like to complete that by the end of the year!
@@CoasterCollege I’m really glad to hear that! It’s an accident that truly rocked me to my core, and it’s time it was explained correctly and in a just way. There was a coroners inquest into the accident as well which illuminated a lot of details. Thank you for all the hard work you put into your videos!
Something that I kept thinking about throughout the video is why are they putting the lightest passenger up front when there's a risk of going airborne? Wouldn't the smart choice be to balance the weight? The set up here puts all the weight at the back which would cause the front to go further upward if the raft goes airborne. I'm assuming it has something to do with the first descent though as that weight balance would cause issues there.
No idea, definitely a questionable choice.
What would be a possible theory for why raft B was prone to acceleration?
Just a guess but, the insert into the raft may have been made heavier for some reason. Probably by accident.
and this is wy the prosecution needs to make sure their Is are dotted and Ts crossed, because otherwise obviously guilty people get off on a technicality. Luckily new laws are in place to hopefully prevent htis from happening again, but shame on the Kansas DAs for dropping the ball.
Wait, it wasn't the DA's who were in charge of prosecution
@@WhiteWolf-lm7gj sorry, mb. whoever was in charge of the prosecution. the prosecutors.
"Was operating as normal as it possibly could have been" Brutal lol, that thing was a nightmare
How the hell was this allowed to happen. I have seen many videos about this incident but none as in-depth and shocking as to how unsafe it was as this one, well done!
Verruckt is a direct antithesis to the idea that "Anyone can build a thrill ride".
There are still five states that have no state-level regulation for rides. Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah.
"As normally as it was capable of doing" = "Made *a* recovery."
ah so "was operating as normally as it was capable of doing" is your way of saying "this thing is a deathtrap"
This slide should've never been built and I remember when this happened
Guys, just because you can put a covered section to prevent derailing in Rollercoaster Tycoon, that doesn't mean you can do that in real life
The number of things in the world that happen because someone thought “oh that flag is red, let’s hide it” instead of “that flag is red, let’s fix it” is wild
I knew about the “big” accident that happened on Verruckt that tragically claimed the life of a young boy. But I had no idea of all these other incidents that happened before that one.
@@SpaceScreaminJohn Glad my video could provide some new information!
The fact that they were even allowed to build this is insane.
Jesus...
This is like every if single slingshot accident happened on the same ride...
This is a story of irresponsibility from the beginning to the tragic end. How this was ever allowed at all is completely beyond me.
Sickening that the higher ups at the park knew the ride was unsafe and were doctoring and destroying incident reports to cover it up so they could keep it running. Guest safety should be every park's highest priority
Also what I truly don’t get is why the nets to catch people were hard metal. Would a super soft netting have made any difference???
I grew up about 5 minutes from this slide, so I watched the thing be built. I was the same age as Caleb when this happened, meaning he would be a senior in highschool this year. I asked my mom like 80 times if we could go on this slide and she said no and I'm so happy that I never got the chance to go.
This was such a tragic accident and I watched it be ripped down and abandonded, I only went a few times but knowing its gone still kinda hurts.
I was injured by a water coaster as a kid, at great wolf lodge in Cincinnati. After the drop there was a huge splash of water that hit me in the face and bloodied my nose. Unlike this park though they seemed very concerned and the coaster actually ended up being taken down a few years later
I’m very glad that it was just a bloody nose AND that they were actually concerned! This video is proof that it could have been so much worse.
My friend and her mother very nearly went on this a week before the accident. It was a wild day when the news popped up with what had happened
Longest one so far for a reason, that's a long ass list of injuries. I remember hearing about this years ago, the name was so familiar, I had no clue that many incidents occurred.
But hey I love these videos of accidents and in this case pure negligence, have for years. If it pleases and sparkles do you think you'd feel up to tackling feats of engineering in the industry as well, or evolutions of certain functions like launch, brakes, and lift hills?
Thanks for watching. I definitely have considered covering those topics, we'll see!
I read the two ladies were injured from the boy's flying head, not from impacting the wire netting.
This is why government oversight is so important
wow I never knew there were so many accidents before the fatal one
The series of excerpts from maintenance reports about boat b going too fast in the days leading up to the accident was genuinely harrowing. They were well aware of the problems and just didn’t do anything about it.
The idea initially was good, but how they went about to making it, how they ignored warnings and risks, and then how they kept repeating mistakes was the downfall. This could have been an amazing ride, but the entire thing was doomed from the start due to everything being thrown out the window.
the fact that the state can ignore the rules made by the ASTM. that’s so out of order. i hope that’s no longer the case and that they have to follow the rules
Just about everything with this video is amazing except the people models. I liked the articulated mannequin style ones more, as they don’t look as much like bald, creepy, eyeless buff men, even as children.
@@ThatEverydayEnthusiast thanks for the feedback
I always had a bad feeling about this ride. I don’t know why but from the day it opened something was telling me that a major injury or death was going to happen on this ride and it wouldn’t be very long until said incident happened. Unfortunately I was right.
The more I learn about this incident, the angrier I get.
I think the absolute genesis of this horrible tragedy is that someone thought that _airtime on a waterslide_ would be fun and not ever painful. Then when they built it they tried everything they could so it *would not produce airtime*. They were told to strap humans into the seats so they wouldn't go airborne, even though the rafts were not connected to the trough and were consistently going airborne. It wasn't a rare thing. The most dangerous thing on a waterslide of any kind is to _not be in contact with the slide and the moving water._ It's the equivalent to a roller-coaster coming off the tracks.
I had never heard that they had rafts hit the wall at the end of the runout trough that was deep and supposed to slow them down. Water is "sticky" and reduces inertia really well when something is at least partially submerged in it. That means that a raft with the correct weight but light in front could _hydroplane_ and be skimming over the water if the runout trough failed to stop it within the predicted length.
THEN their idea for backup safety was to surround the slide with what is essentially a metal slinky and netting so when the ride DID AS KNOWN AND EXPECTED go airborne, they only had a few feet of clearance to "head choppers" that were literal instead of roller-coaster figurative. OVER THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE SLIDE. They didn't want the rafts to exit the trough, and that certainly would prevent a raft from falling...how did they not think one chess move ahead to realizing the netting and slinky would stop a raft but also CHEESE GRATE HUMAN BODIES AT THE HIGH SPEED THEY DESIGNED THIS SLIDE TO ACCOMPLISH. Accidents do happen, but they were given so much professional and experiential data of the danger it was an extremely preventable accident.
Thanks for talking my suggestion Coaster College