The conveyor belts at the checkouts in my local supermarket stop automatically if they become obstructed. There is literally better protection in place for my eggs.
I know I really shouldn't have laughed, but that last line was great. Yeah, this was disgusting. I'm surprised no safety inspector caught that THERE WAS NO STOP MECHANISM. Corporate short-term thinking in a nutshell.
Everything of this nature has to have a safety loop with various switches, where any one switch pressed/tripped makes the loop go open circuit and the whole ride shuts down. That and the water level by design should have never been allowed to dip below the level of the conveyor even if the pumps both stopped. I visited this park once when younger.
The problem is that while operating normally the motors that drive the conveyor have to make a lot of power and torque to pull these tubes loaded with people out of the ride and up the ramp. Sometimes they are pulling multiple tubes loaded with several passengers each. The load on the conveyor can vary greatly at different times. Driving one tube into a second one with enough force to flip them, smash them together and then grind up the people unfortunate enough to have fallen on the belt is probably all well within it's normal torque operating limits. The failure is that the ride operators were not taught the proper procedures on how to stop the conveyor in case of an emergency like this. There should have been multiple, redundant red e-stop buttons located around the platform for both the conveyor and the rotating platform. And also if one of the water pumps shut down the ride should be stopped immediately. But even still, ride operators who are trained properly would never allow something like this to happen. The operators hitting the e-stop should be your last line of defense against an accident like this, but to not train them about this is straight up negligence.
What's really depressing is the 12-year-old girl blames herself for her mother's death after she had begged to go on the River Rapids. She is not only dealing with the trauma of what happened, but survivor's guilt, and I really just want to hug her.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 You don’t know how counselling could help because you imagine it’s just going over something over and over again, and you don’t immediately think it’s because your understanding of counselling might be incomplete?
Paramedics should constantly have counselling, unless they’re psychopaths or have an exceptional support network. No human is designed to witness that concentration of human suffering.
@@o5-7firefox I’ve always felt that we see those things so the majority of people don’t have to. I actually think it’s a shame that TV & movies etc are becoming so realistic & that actual deaths & dead bodies are creeping into YT & onto the news & current affairs, because I don’t think the average person needs to see the reality of what we do.
I remember when this happened. That’s when I learned the technical phrase “incompatible with life”. Usually, paramedics do not pronounce a patient dead because it’s more difficult to verify such things out in the wild and there’s always a chance that a patient may be resuscitated at the hospital. However.. some injuries are so severe that there is no chance in the world that the victim survived. Hence, paramedics will declare someone to have suffered wounds that are “incompatible with life”.
I didn't actually know this detail, thanks for clarifying. I think another reason paramedics don't declare death is because legally only a licensed doctor can officially pronounce a patient dead. Might be wrong on that, but that was my understanding.
@@FoxSullivan DOA means the absence of a heartbeat/respiration upon arrival at the hospital, not necessarily legal death. there are cases of DOA patients living to tell about it
@@PiraticalNonsense as a former paramedic, you're completely correct. "Incompatible with life" means that by their observation there isn't a chance of survival without them actually making the call on declaring them dead. This is just a very sad story.
The paramedics on scene described some of the victims as having "injuries incompatible with life", and social media users jumped on him for using a phrase like that. Not only is it a medical term, it's probably the nicest way they could have put the extent of injuries of the victims. Disgusting how social media will jump on anyone in the case of a disaster, even those that tried to help.
he could of said the bodies ended up looking like ground beef with spaghetti tendons. but he didnt. he said it in a much better way. now tell me, assholes who jumped on his case, which one would you rather him say, disgusting description, or detailed enough description to keep YOU from vomiting.
If my memory serves, the poor paramedic was facing the press less than an hour after attending what was probably one of the most dreadful scenes he'd ever attended, and was responding to a journalist asking what the scene was like and what action he had taken. He was attempting to explain that he had not administered first aid, and the reason why, keeping in mind that he was on air and so he was trying to be sensitive about how he phrased it. I mean, the poor bloke could hardly say "I didn't administer first aid because the bodies were in pieces," could he?
Australian here. From memory, Dreamworld was closed for more than a month afterwards. What you didn't mention is that the children who survived had to watch their mother and uncle drown. That's something you would never, _ever_ get over.
@@jeffreymccarthy7583 I've seen this reported before, some sources say all 4 were killed by the conveyor but some sources say only two were killed by the conveyor and two drowned, my thinking - which is a bit gruesome - is that all four were killed by the conveyor but only two died immediately due to the catastrophic nature of their injuries while the other two effectively survived being pulled down into the mechanism but had otherwise survivable injuries had they not been underwater. Either way I don't think any child saw their parent drown, they would have seen them get dragged into a mechanism that was dismembering people and that is a bit more traumatising than watching someone drown. 😐
@@krashd in the inquest the coroners determined that they all died from crush injuries with no contribution from drowning, but either way still completely horrific and preventable
@@crowgang6678 Yeah, I read the coroner's report after watching this video and to be honest it puzzled me. It turns out nobody was dismembered in any way, in fact none of the victims lost so much as a finger - All four died of crush injuries, with the exception of one guy who died from an almost decapitation whilst still being a crush death. The lack of gruesomeness is not what puzzles me however, it's what killed the two who fell on to the conveyer. The two folks who fell backwards into the "conveyor-meets-raft" system died within 20 seconds, one had his head almost pulled off by the planks of the conveyor while the other had his ribcage crushed by said planks as they passed over his body in the 14 seconds it took for the conveyor to come to a stop. The two adults who were on the extreme edges of the raft (the two first killed were at the back of the raft, while the two surviving children were at the front of the raft), fell out of the raft and onto the periphery of the conveyor as their raft shook. Both were seen to slip through the gaps in the conveyor (which became an incident in itself) but no mention was made of how they came by their crushing injuries. Now you have to study the mechanism to picture this next bit in your head but if the two who fell "through" the plank gaps had landed on the chain ratchet system that moved the conveyor the most likely injury would be a lost limb or missing fingers/hands/elbow. There was nothing crushing in there, just cogs and chains that could pull an arm off. This is what I cannot get my head around.
@@krashd yeah, I mean there's no conspiracy theory since they obviously died, but it would be better to see an expert's diagram as it's hard to picture it.
I think one of the most horrifying parts of this tragedy is that, reportedly, the family of the surviving girl had been planning to leave the park, but she asked for just one more ride. Her father stood outside the ride with their infant and he SAW that raft tip the mother of his children into the machinery, with his daughter clinging onto the seat for dear life. Absolutely horrifying. He went missing in 2021, and it's been assumed that he took his own life because of the trauma of witnessing the accident, as well as the stress of fighting Ardent for rightful compensation.
@@nicoledoubleyou seriously, eff you - you have no effing clue. That man quite literally watched helplessly as his wife got ground into mincemeat, fought unsuccessfully for years for compensation from the party responsible, and tried his best to raise his traumatized daughter and her sibling while he was battling what must have been a severe case of PTSD. Moreover, your comment demonstrates your complete lack of understanding and compassion of what it's like to be suicidal. Depression at its worst will make a person genuinely feel as if he is a burden on others and better off dead. He may well have thought his own demise was the least selfish thing he could do for them!
@@nicoledoubleyou its selfish to expect a person with severe mental distress to live through life fighting their own brain every moment of their existance without help. don't accuse victims of being selfish because of their own mental turmoil, its a disgusting mindset to have. the daughter deserves so much better, but it it not the fault of the father.
"Immediately plead guilty" Good of them. "Wanted to build a memorial garden" At least they are making up for their mistake "Has yet to fiscally compensate the families" what
Well, a rich man has as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel passing through the eye of the needle. This is why. Love of money is the root of all evil.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 That makes exactly zero sense. Being successful doesn't mean you're a bad person and it doesn't mean you kove money, although that is the case for many rich people, not all of them are "evil"
Just pointing out, not only are they yet to financially compensate the families, they haven't yet built the memorial garden either. I think they're hoping that if they stall long enough Australians might forget what happened and they can quietly shelve it. In your dreams, Dreamworld execs - not a chance in hell.
There were two ride operators on. It was the junior operator's *very first day* on the ride and she'd had just a couple of hours of training that morning. The senior operator was distracted by loading/unloading other rafts, and didn't realize the rafts were on a collision course until about 15 seconds before it happened, and it sounds like he panicked initially and wasn't able to stop the conveyor belt in time.
the phrase “improvements to safety were put off due to budget concerns” is never a phrase that should be said. this incident shows such a chilling disregard for safety.
Yet, if anything is going to be put off due to budget concerns - it'll always be safety, because safety doesn't sell tickets, and lack of thereof is not visible to guests. And most people greatly underestimate the risks of bad things happening - until they see any kind of accident in person. This is the same mechanism that makes people break the speed limits. They think - 'We're gonna be fine' - and in fact almost always they are right. Almost.
It may sound extreme, but for me this level of disregard for safety measures just to save a few shekels is not manslaughter but murder. Sure, there is no plan to kill a specific person in cold blood but it's definitely as bad to value human life this low and even think about taking the risks of fatal accidents. I hope the people who where responsible never get a happy moment in their life again with all the suffering they've caused. Not only on the surviving children and the families of the deceased but also on the emergency units and the ride operators who weren't trained and didn't know what was going on before it was too late. They will probably blame themselves even if they didn't knew better.
@@TheGasMaskGuy96 since the video hasn’t mentioned it I assume no one was sentenced to prison and that makes me so bitter. Just imagining that those who are responsible living their lives, going out with friends and laughing makes me so angry. Their greed brought horrific death and tragedy and yet they are free.
In short, capitalism always happens eventually. Even if a company starts out safety focused, eventually someone figures out that cutting just a few corners will increase profits, and when nothing bad happens, they cut a few more, and the process inevitably escalates until tragedy happens.
Have been on that ride so many times. Dreamworld initially tried to blame a young girl ride operator, she was never shown how or when to use the emergency shut down. My cousin worked there as a ride operator and I'm blown away by his stories.
@@T3noir He was paid fuck all as most of them were, they did theory training and the practical training received was much like the young girl who operated this ride it was rushed and dodgy. I'd heard about harnesses not locking into place, but they still had the seat belt back up so it was fine.
most of the operators are highschool/just graduated age. It shouldnt be on them to learn the emergancy procedures themselves. I simply cannot understand why they were never taught any of this. But i also have a lot of memories as a kid going on this ride, it was even my families favourite ride from Dreamworld, its always crazy to think about how this couldve happened at any point. Knowing what we know now its hard to believe an incident didnt happen earlier at Dreamworld.
Vicarious liability means the owner, supervisor and those in authority are the ones responsible for the actions of an employee if that employee acts in accordance with the training provided to them.
I will never forget the day this story broke. It was massive here in Australia. We thought it was just a horrific accident but the systemic failures were unbelievable and the accident could have been avoided. So weird to know that I went on that ride- it was actually my favorite ride in the park. RIP to those that passed away in the accident
Woah. I posted a comment including something like, I couldn’t count how many times I’ve been on EXACTLY this type of ride, but I cannot imagine having this BEEN YOUR FAVORITE RIDE. That is just crazy. And agreed, this whole incident is an outrage start to finish.
@@laurelsilberman5705 I went on this ride so many times and i was in dreamworld A WEEK before this happened and went on this ride. its so scary to think that this happened a week later.
@@madiannc one of the biggest reasons they died that this video failed to mention was that dreamworld had removed one out of every two slats on the conveyor belt meaning that the gaps between the slats were big enough for people to fall through
You know the reality of this is that 4 human beings were thrown alive into a meat grinder while their children heard and saw their grizzly deaths and the perpetrators have YET to start paying them compensation. Jezus.
@@GreenGlo1991 And to think, probably the only reason those kids are alive, is because the adults weight caused the side they were on to tip up instead of down. I don’t know. Nobody deserved to have that happen to them.
The worst part about this story is last year the 12-year-olds father (husband of Kate goodchild) went missing and likely committed suicide because of what happened. Cannot even imagine what she’s going through losing her father after her mom and uncles..
The father could not deal with the loss of his wife at all. According to older articles, the poor girl had to "hold the family together" and help a lot with raising her baby sister. She tried to be brave for her father all those years and still couldn't safe him. This is so incredibly sad.
@@awetistic5295 Oh snap.. just learning of this today. Dave Turner.. I found some articles from June 2021 but nothing since.. they found his car but nothing else.
@@awetistic5295 So that poor girl had to be instantly turned into the mother for her sister and the head of household. OMG! I hope that poor girl has received intense therapy in order to live a life as close to normal as could be expected under the circumstances. If she doesn't turn to drugs or alcohol then that is one strong woman!
The worst part of this is the family were about to leave, but the kids convinced them to go on "one last ride". That was the ride that killed their mother and uncle. Can you imaging living with that for the rest of your life? It breaks my heart.
Its horrendous for those poor kids to have to think that for the rest of their lives. The sad reality is that if they hadnt gone on the ride it would of been someone else that died that day
The thing that really gets me with this story. Is the fact that the only survivors, were children of the victims. How horrific and traumatic must it be to lose your parents in an accident you survived. I feel sorry for those 2 children and the negligence on that ride is truly horrible.
Yeah that's true but it's better they survived if anyone did. I'm sure the parents would feel nothing but guilt the rest of their lives if the roles were reversed.
@@arianebolt1575 It's mainly because of their position on the ride -- the children were at the front so they were able to grab on quickly when the ride went vertical, but the adults were at the back and fell backwards immediately
Somehow the fact that it was only children who survived, and probably children with massive guilt for begging to go on the ride at that makes it so much worse. With that much chaos as well, the parents likely died not knowing if their children were safe or not.
@@michalaswindail783 Yes, because it was the "safe" ride you'd mostly go on it if you were a child or with one. Those poor children are definitely not responsible but I don't doubt they'd feel that they are regardless
@@weemadando without seeing the full results of the investigation it is pure speculation. I think the ultimate cause is inadequate risk assessment hence risk not adequately mitigated. Given the fact that there were no criminal charges laid (as far as i know) criminal negligence was not proven. If they had known the risk and not acted they would then be open to criminal charges. Ignorance is no better than negligence... but amusement parks are run by teenagers and other minimum wage employees. Without a sufficient safety management system, which by definition is supported by an adequate risk assessment you're relying on those teenagers to identify and mitigate the risk on your behalf.
It recently became public that the husband of Kate Goodchild and father of the surviving 12 year old girl went missing in July 2021. His car was found at a river crossing outside of Canberra and it is believed he committed suicide by jumping into the river. A search was mounted but called off after nine days. There has been no update since.
@@xiv648 Thankfully the media are shutting the fuck up about that kid because the last update we've heard from her was almost exactly two years ago, when the girl was present at the court when Ardent Leisure Ltd copped the massive fine. Them talking about her non-stop would only fuck her up more.
That's so enraging--that the kid not only had to witness the horrific death of her mother, but her father committed suicide afterwards and left her completely alone... I hope she stays strong and doesn't hurt herself.
@@Keznen no, HIGHLy disagree. Kevin Hines said his first thought after jumping was regret at having jumped. Also heard of a guy who lost his wife and 3 kids in a fire, and the guy listening goes home to find out he JUST lost his house and family in a fire! He was a drunk and said he didn't use over it.
Imagine being one of the kids who had to watch their mom die in a brutal fashion right before your eyes on what was supposed to be a special day together. All because some greedy CEO wanted to save money by not investing in safety measures. They should be put in jail.
Tbh it isn't that simple, park employees get pressured to cut corners. This accident can't just be blamed on "greedy CEOs" especially when this park is family owned
No, they should be put through the same "grinder" that those poor parents were that day. Rebuild the ride with their own greed driven profits and suffer the exact same fate. Jail would just be a get out scott free card, especially the camp cupcake they'd end up at being rich as they are.
The bodies would have been torn apart, mangled around the gears and such, no wonder the first respondents required counselling after this, one of them even got PTSD and became a recluse
@@christnestrider185 wow.. if he ever reads this then God bless you man... takes courage to do what you do and even more to keep going after something like that..
@@eiosti he already knows the story more than anyone.. if anything, he might find someone who's went through the same type of trauma who he can relate to..
@@DocLogic123 sure sure but PTSD means you don't get "used to" the story. Any number of triggers or literally anything at all could send you back to the instance of trauma. It would be unwise for him to be seeking out videos like this one
As an Australian, I should mention something about this ride - it was the most 'mild' of the rides in the park. The only stuff more gentle was the Wiggle's Big Red Car ride. It was the sort of ride you would go on if you had people who were too young/elderly/frail to go on any of the other rides. Part of what was so shocking was that this ride was so gentle, so babyish, that if you asked someone to guess which ride had an accident, nobody would've guessed that it was the River Rapids Ride. And if you asked them to guess how it happened, they would've said that somebody got out of their seat during the ride or something. Nobody would've guessed that it happened on that ride, the way that it did.
i know right..... i am scared of this kind of stuff and roller coasters breaking etc and i would always go on the river rapids because i though it would be the safest even if it did break......
The ride being a gentle one probably created the sense of complacency amongst the park staff, fundamentally though any large piece of powerful machinery on a mild ride is as dangerous as one on a very intense ride.
I'm Australian too and I remember this day like it was yesterday, the Whole country mourned those 4 who lost their lives and we were shocked it could ever happen
I appreciate the straightforward title and thumbnail too. A lot of channels would be like "These people got on a theme park ride, then THIS happened..."
I was at Dreamworld on holiday the day before this happened. I took my whole family on that ride. Hearing what happened just 24hrs later still sends chills down my back. Never could you imagine such a thing could happen. Those poor people, the absolutely gruesome and painful way to die.
Ah, I was on that ride at Kentucky Kingdom with my daughter a week before this girl's feet were torn from her body edition.cnn.com/2007/US/06/21/six.flags.accident/ . It is chilling how many close calls we have in life over silly things like 'amusement'. If there is a takeaway from this, it is 'don't trust people foolishly with your children's lives because a corporation says it is safe'. Corporaticans LIE, it is their raison detre.
This isn't theme park related but one year my husband and I were on vacation and found a restaurant we really liked. We had dinner there one night and went back for lunch the next day. Later that day, like a couple of hours later a person walked into that restaurant and started randomly shooting, and there were fatalities. It shook us up to say the least. You just never know....
My mum, auntie and I were there two days before it. Hearing it on the TV in the hotel room we were staying in shook all of us. Still can't believe this happened
The park does not have to pay the victims families, they were fined the 3.6million for failure to comply to WH&S which is paid to the government (or wherever the money goes) it does not go to the family victims involved. The only ones that can technically sue for compensation are the children that were on the raft. They can sue for psychological damages but other family members cannot. Idk how it is everywhere else but if a family member was not there at the point of incident to witness the tragic accident, then as unfair and terrible as it sounds they are not directly involved with the investigation. Nor are they legally involved with the court. They can speak on behalf of the family and kids, but cannot tell the kids to do anything or sue for compensation themselves.
@@b97p.19 In Queensland, the wrongful death legislation provides that a claim for damages may be brought by the executor or administrator of the deceased’s estate. If there is no executor or administrator, or if no action is brought by the executor or administrator within six months after the death of the deceased, an action may be brought by and in the name of any person for whose benefit such an action could have been commenced.
This story sounds like it should have happened in the 70s or 80s. Its terrifying to know it only happened four years ago. While many lessons have been learned, just the thought of how those died is spine chilling. Another well put together and respectful account video.
Agreed. I'm a big thrill seeker, and coaster addict. I'll go skydiving, bungie jumping, ride any coaster, even sketchy rides at the fair. I'll be damned if I'll ever go on a river rapids ride again though. I have submechanophobia so water rides have always freaked me out, but this specific accident was enough for me to swear them off for good.
@Deborah Shaw Computerization and multitudes of redundant systems in modernized parks make rides incredibly safe compared to then. Safer than your own car in many cases. Of course, when a park cuts corners and doesn't allow the proper engineers to build their ride, this happens.
The Thunder River ride at Six Flags over Georgia in the US malfunctioned when it first opened, too. My best friends brother was one of the park staff working the ride that day. One raft flipped over and the guests were trapped underwater, upside down. He and several other staff dove in and manually released the safety belts, saving the life of every rider. Such a scary day.
Oh this was so horrifying when it happened. I live in Queensland and have ridden the River Rapids ride as a kid, as I am sure many SEQlders have. The fact that they tried to blame the 15 year old girl operating the ride when she hadn't been trained properly was disgusting and appalling. It was a failure in Dreamworld's internal safety systems that allowed this to happen. It was the fault of no one else but the corporation that owns the Theme Park. I feel so sorry for the poor families and especially the children who witnessed their relatives horrendous deaths. Dreamworld was closed for quite a while afterwards and people were not keen on going back initially. I don't know what attendance is like these days. I haven't been there for years.
It’s funny how they blame a 15 year old girl and not the dipshit in charge who made budget cuts. “oh oh that’s hindsight bias we cut the budget so low it couldn’t function so we didn’t MEAN to dismember people even though we did in direct result of our shitty greed so here blame this poor peasant child” Freaking disgusting
That’s terrible! I honestly feel so bad because that girl probably could have thought it was her fault and probably is traumatized and guilty for not being able to do anything.
@@huh7270 My friend worked at dreamworld and knew the girl that operated the ride. The operator was hospitalised several times after the incident due to some quite gruesome suicide attempts, not too sure how she's doing now though. Its disgusting that a large corporation tried to blame it on the operator when they wouldn't install some cheap sensors and actually fix their ride
When my family and I went to Dreamworld some time before the fatal accident, I noticed that the water level at the top of the conveyor belt was extremely low. Our boat bumped hard into the boat in front and slightly lifted. I believe that Dreamworld were aware of this issue with the pumps way before the accident but chose to ignore it. It was completely preventable.
@@rustinstardust2094 we were thankfully fine. I was a bit concerned at the time but never imagined an accident like this could happen, but after what happened to us, i can see just how the accident happened (boats all piled up at the top, low water level and nowhere for your own raft to go) I'm still saddened and horrified about what happened to the other family. What a terrible way to die :(
@Thora Friganza I agree. I went on with my husband and small children. It could have easily been us or any other family. The family that it happened to, I could not believe it at first as I thought the worse that could happen was rafts bumping hard into each other and slightly lifting. Never something this horrific. I can't believe that Dreamworld didn't get this issue of low water/pump problems rectified as safety for guests comes first.
"Improvements to safety features were deferred because of budgetary concerns." If you operate a massively popular amusement park, you NEED proper safety equipment, even if you don't have enough money. ZERO excuses.
My brother inlaw needed counciling for years after a similar incident. He was a first responder to a factory accident, but he knew the victim who got dragged into the machinery. I can't even imagine what sort of horror that's like.
A retired fire captain told me once about a horror that took years to get over, a repair tech at a factory had pulled all the emergency stops on a machine, but it somehow suddenly turned a large fan inside on anyway. Poor guy sliced up. Said he never found out what the OSHA (US, Missouri) investigation turned up as to how that happened.
There’s a vid about some poor bastard whose own coworkers unwittingly locked him into a Bumblebee Tuna factory pressure cooker he was cleaning, and cooked him alive…
I remember being there only 1 year before this accident. My partner and our daughter and her special needs sister were on the ride and one of the rafts got stuck on the same part, forcing our raft to push up and almost flipped several times til I yelled out to them to fix it. A staff member then used a pole to push the stuck raft. It saddens me that it was a KNOWN issue and was obviously ignored. So sad.
Omg that’s so scary. I last went on the ride in April 2016, and had a blast. However my mums made a weird comment saying she felt like she’d never ride that again and had a bad feeling that something really bad could happen, especially as 2 year olds are allowed on the ride, and from experience, my little brother jumped around a lot. !
The conveyer belt should never have been that dangerous to begin with. It should be a flat solid surface. Why would you build a body mangler under a freely moving open raft?
There was a section of the conveyor accessible to passengers while boarding, that was covered and completely flat. The conveyor at the end of the ride where this happened is, under normal operation, submerged in water. Had that been full there wouldn't have been the resistance to snag the raft in the first place. I get your overall point, but had management/staff properly operated the ride, it would be very unlikely to tip a raft in that section. Some of the rafts with larger passengers did tip to pretty steep angles during the white water rapid section though, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few rafts tipped there over the years. When I heard this on the news I assumed it tipped in the rapids section until I read otherwise some time later
@@JordyValentine But that's exactly clara :v's point. Coulda, shoulda, woulda but....they didn't. There needs to be redundancy in place for every possible safety measure because you can't rely on people to do it. In a perfect world your point is valid, but this world is far from perfect.
@@Floridafanatic28 Covering it in water doesn't address the danger. A person ending up outside the raft is an obvious safety issue that should have been addressed along the entire route of the ride. This shouldn't be some weird edge-case that no one would think of. Rafts getting stuck is another seemingly obvious safety issue that should have been considered.
@@Floridafanatic28 my point, as someone who has ridden this very ride many times before it was removed, is that had the ride been operated properly, the conveyor would not have been the dangerous part of the ride. I don't disagree that the ride could have been designed better
The conveyer was actually modified. When the ride originally opened it operated with all the wooden slats and was a flat surface but for some reason a few years prior to the accident they removed 60% of the wooden slats creating the large gaps
Minor things to note; Dreamworld wanted to open the park the *day after*. The Queensland Police Service reminded them that it was an active crime scene, and opening the park would have made their lives a lot more difficult
Furthermore, a number of staff who were first responders to the scene were left understandably traumatised by the incident. Dreamworld (Ardent Leisure) flat out refused their claims for compensation for workplace injury, taking all legal cases through to appeal and dragging their names through the media and playing dirty. Bunch of arseholes.
I worked in rides at an amusement park as a teenager. one of our rides was on of these (built by Intamin). The amount of negligence necessary, by all people involved, is mind-boggling.
@@tomthomas8781 it states in the video Intamin didn't build this ride, the park did. I guess they got hold of the blueprints somehow and decided they'd save money by building it themselves, obviously without the safety features.. This company isn't involved in this, the two shouldn't be conflated.
I don't know how quickly it all happened, from the malfunction to the final incident, but to not recognize the issue, and to not know where the emergency shut off is; that's just insane.
@@bazzle_brush You're not allowed to just build someone else's machine, getting those blueprints is called: Industrial Espionage. The moment the park opened, if this was truly the case, Intamin would instantly file a lawsuit.
I've been doing some research on this case, after seeing some people on another short video about this event say that this ride had functioned without incident for thirty years. And, well....it didn't. There hadn't been a safety assessment done by a qualified engineer since it opened in 1986, and many ad hoc modifications were never passed on to the regulator. One such modifications was a removal of some wooden slats on a conveyor belt at the end of the ride, which created dangerously large gaps under which was machinery. sound familiar?? "The coroner said managers at dreamworld had ignored pervious incidents where there had been problems on the ride and not done anything to fix underlying causes. There had been serious incidents where rafts had also flipped in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2014, but no action was taken to fix the fundamental problem." A safety manager even said it was only a matter of time before a fatal accident happened. There were individuals from the board down issuing safety concerns and no one listened. It's just sickening really. They should have lost every dime and that whole place should have been shut down. The park owners claimed they would be bulldozing the ride and replacing it with a memorial that the family would help design. And instead? They announced in late 2018 that they were building a rollercoaster that would tie into another ride right next to it. And no mention of a "memorial" has been made since. Lastly, there hasn't been much talk of how horrendous the deaths of these four people were, but the coroner said that there were external and internal injuries, meaning the ride dug deeply into their flesh. Other comments I've seen said that because of the slats being removed, the people fell through the gaps, and were pulled into or on top of the machines, which acted like a mincer. It took so long to remove their bodies because of how hard it was to pull their bodies back out of the machinery. They were so badly disfigured that the emt’s and other people who took part in the body retrieval, had to have therapy to deal with the trauma. And no jail time? Only charged 3 million?? No memorial??? Utterly reprehensible. They literally got away with murder. www.afr.com/companies/tourism/dreamworld-tragedy-an-accident-waiting-to-happen-20200225-p5441k
I read that report a couple of months back and had nightmares for a week afterwards. Absolutely disgusting misconduct. Cannot believe this happened in our country.
It's appalling that safety inspections are done, problems are pointed out and then nobody come back to check if they had been fixed. Happened in the office I used to work at too, owner hid the fire extinguishers because they were unsightly, inspector put them in proper place and the next day they had disappeared again. Health check for the employees, phones needed replacement because not ergonomic and causing neck issues, nothing got replaced. We employees called back the heath inspector and they said they can't force to change anything and can only point out problems. It was a low risk job but knowing this could happen everywhere is terrifying
not to mention they were fined 3.6 million but the families received no compensation?!? Pray tell where in the FUCK did that 3.6 million go? Utterly fucking infuriating.
Over in the great US, we have incidents like the Verrückt water slide accident. At least there it seems like a couple owners were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
"The recovery of the bodies was so traumatic that even some of the paramedics needed counseling afterwards." What a horrible and preventable tragedy. Those children that survived are going to carry that trauma with them.
I love these types of rides cause I always felt like they were the safest. It's so gentle and calm, who could ever expect this kind of accident? This is terrifying.
It’s so shocking, I think this was only a year after the smiler crash in England which is obviously a much scarier big ride but no one died in the incident (even though the way they both happened were kind of similar)
I've always felt the opposite. I avoid water rides/slides because you get thrown around, unlike rollercoasters which are more predictable and sturdier.
You can tell from the wood design that it was more of a custom made not the typical kind you see at every major theme park. The oh we can just do it our sells and save money approach instead of going with the tried and true design that has worked for years.
I feel so bad for anyone who worked this ride on that day. Probably some teenager who never would expect that. Plus the children of the family. So sad.
I remember that in court the dreamworlds lawyer tried to point the finger at the teenager operating the ride when it was literally her first day operating such a thing and she had no training for it
Yes - one of the two operators had literally never worked on that ride before and had just had basic training that morning, and hadn't been told where everything was. IIRC when she noticed something was wrong with the water level she tried to stop the ride but wasn't familiar enough with the controls to get the conveyor belt shut down in time. The pump failure had also happened several previous times because of a recurring electrical problem, that the park was struggling to troubleshoot because their record-keeping was so bad and the maintenance people had a hard time figuring out how their homebrew ride even worked.
I hate the fact that there are probably tons of people who saw this on the news and blamed it on the teen without considering the fact that it can very easily be the employer's fault
As an Australian, I was hoping you would do this one. Dreamworld’s conduct towards its employees and its cold hearted attitude towards the victims families and survivors was atrocious. They blamed employees and fought closing down the park. It’s all about money and I doubt they have learnt anything.
even when amusement parks are at their greediest they NEVER cheap out on safety, i don't understand how dreamworld is even still operating to this day because no company that is willing to bypass safety prodecures to that extent should ever be allowed to run an amusement park period
I live in Queensland Australia, I had been on this ride probably at least a hundred times in my life. What's crazy is this was considered one of the safest and most family-friendly in the entire park. Most other rides in the theme park were considered a lot more dangerous but due to this fact, they probably had better precautions in case of an emergency.
Because this type of ride is usually the safest in a theme park, if done accordingly to all security precautions and with proper emergency blockages. I work in an amusement park and the same thing happened: a water pump broke. The draft got stuck, but the conveying belt stopped, in order to not make the drafts bump into each other. the passengers of the drafts were then safely rescued and the ride shut down to repair
You might know this Rebekah! Did they change the platform at the top of the ride so it no longer rotates in recent years or did it still spin like a carousel with the flow of the water? The removal of most of the slats on the conveyor belt was a fairy recent change too from memory..
I have a massive fear of rides and I live close by as well, this was one of the rides I also thought was safe until the accident, one of the few types of rides I was okay going on as a child-I was always going on a similar one at movie world, and now I’m just so scared of every ride, placing your life in the hands of so many unknown factors just makes me so uneasy
From the perspective of a maintenance technician, here are three solutions that would have completely prevented this absolute travesty from happening. 1.A simple trip switch at the end of the conveyor that hit the bottom of the boats and stopped the conveyor if it didn’t detect a boat after a set amount of time. 2. An interlock system which prevented the conveyor from starting unless both pumps were detected to be active first. 3. The most rudimentary. A $15 float switch that would kill the conveyor if the water dropped below a set point. As someone who works in the industry, this horror was absolutely on the maintenance department. I would have red tagged not allowed guests on it at all until this was addressed, the big wigs bitching about lost profits be damned.
As a maintenance tech, I'm truly astonished they didn't have a float switch at the very least. Entirely preventable. I've worked for places that are really cheap but this is just sad.
as a person with no knowledge of this stuff. I’m confused why they even continued to keep the ride open if there wasn’t enough water. kids do dumb things like maybe trying to reach down and touch the conveyer belt thing that the circle things with seats ride on. they are so greedy. and borderline murderers for being so knowingly irresponsible.
4. A button to release your seat restraint in an emergency so you can (hopefully) jump free. Once those hydraulic restraints come down over your head you are trapped.
Yeah, we only really have one big location for huge modern theme parks in Australia and it's the Gold Coast (old style parks in Sydney and Melbourne called Luna Park and some smaller water parks). It was really shocking to think something like this could happen in Australia.
i think the reason this hit australia so hard is because everyone had been on that ride. the sunny coast is a big place for tourism and at dream world, the river rapids ride is considered to be the ‘safe ride’. i’d been on that ride multiple times as a child and its one of the few rides at the park which parents feel safe letting their children on.
As an Aussie, going on this ride was part of my childhood, as it was for many tens of thousands of other Australians. It was so surreal when this happened.
We had something similar to this in England at Alton towers, I never went on the smiler ride but have been Alton towers couple times in my childhood and went on most rides, but looking at how unsafe some of rides are now as a adult does give you some kind of perspective on how fortunate you were as a child to not experience a tragedy like this, wether that meant you were a part of the accident or you witnessed it before your eyes
For the first 16 years of my life, I visited Dreamworld annually. This was the ride we went on last every single time. It was my favourite way to end the day. When the news broke of this tragedy I was heartbroken. I had been on this ride a few months prior. I can’t imagine the pain and heartbreak the families experienced. It’s truly disgusting that Dreamworld used no basic safety measures on such an important ride.
Yes. It was a staple ride and a good one to ride last (as you could get soaked). A tragic event and no amount of money can fix the "disgusting" practises. Especially a ride that old. The payout was a pittance and should have been much greater. Most theme parks usually don't want a memorial remembrance (reminding people of a tragedy) in their park but I would say for PR purposes they will have decided to go that route. No surprise the families are upset and want nothing to do with it. Traumatic is an understatement.
@@fredtaylor9792 plead guilty because it's about saving face and surviving. If they tried to contest it the public would have turned against them. It's always about the $. They take a small revenue loss and get to move on another day. Contesting it they would have lost anyway and then possibly faced harsher fines and criticism.
@@Yahowah777 Not necessarily true at all. You'd think you'd be right but most companies do contest it. The public tends to have a short memory, especially when it comes to their enjoyment. Here in the states anyways, it seems very common for the company to fight in court.
I really appreciate how you make clear that as long as basic safety procedures are followed, these rides are perfectly safe. A lot of channels that cover topics like this seem like they're trying to make all rides look dangerous just to scare people, and that isn't remotely accurate. So props to you for being responsible.
I worked at a park with a similar ride. The loading area (up high) was separate from the unloading area (down below) guests were never allowed to ride up the conveyor belt. We had CCTV and monitors to view all areas of the ride. Emergency stop switches were clearly marked. Ride operators were certified and had on going training. The ride was operated through 3 test cycles with no passengers, before the park opened. No excuse for what happened.
Yeah I was wondering why the dreamworld ride didn't have a separate disembarking platform. Just seems fundamentally unsafe to even risk people being on the conveyor in the first place.
Usually I hear these terrifying tragedies in the 70s and 80s, knowing how recent this is just gives me chills. And it happened of ignorance. It’s so upsetting and chilling
I mean the second he said they did it themselves i knew cut corners where gonna be the issue. Theres not a lot of home grown, homebuilt complicated rides that end well. Should have bit the bullet and hired the professionals.
When parks modifies a construction that has been designed by a professional company such as Intamin, with engineers and architects, no wonder it would cause an accident soon or later.
Annie Sager Son of Beast was built by the Roller Coaster Corporation of America and was fired during construction for their poor construction of the ride but the rest was finished by the park. The Beast was built entirely by the park and that ride has ran without incident. It just comes down to proper safety measurements
Thank you for reporting this incident without sensationalising it. Many TH-cam channels would neglect to mention that theme park rides are normally extremely safe, so thank you for putting that bit in. It is because of how safe the industry is that when an accident occurs, all efforts must be taken to ensure it can never happen again.
I also watch GP to Enthusiast. He’s also very respectful to those who are injured or die. And very good at explaining how the rides fail or close down.
@@weltonvillegal6258 another vote for GO to Enthusiast. I was initially put off by his seemingly-elitist sounding name. But glad I persisted because his knowledge is top notch and his explanations are very intellectually satisfying.
I live near Dreamworld and have ridden this ride more times to count over the many years I've gone to Dreamworld. This accident was horrific. I will and have never gone back out of respect for the victims.
I'm glad the children survived. But what a shame the park had money to make all the necessary upgrades to open it a year after the accident. And money to start the memorial garden. But not enough to help the families? The two surviving children in the LEAST need counseling.
@@manifestationsofasort They may not. It depends on the kid and their level of resiliency. I know that sounds bizarre, but there’s research on this. Two people can experience the same, life-altering trauma, and yet they react to it differently. Giving children who’ve experienced acute trauma counseling does reduce the risk of them developing PTSD, so they should absolutely be seen by someone after an event like this.
Children have a biological instinct to cling onto things and if dosed with enough adrenaline they could be able to support their own weight like a primate's youth would be able to. I think the unofficial explanation for how they managed to survive is related to the stories of parents lifting cars off their trapped child etc.
What? According to this video they demolished the ride. And it's not as though they're trying to get away without paying a dime to the families, they're likely trying to mitigate the expense. You can of course debate the ethics here, trying to whittle down a compensatory payment, but you can bet the park intends to pay something substantial. They're probably just trying to negotiate something with the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs view the memorial garden as an attempt to garner enough sympathy to lower their settlement demands.
That was exactly what our thinking was when my family visited the Gold Coast in 2016. River Rapids was the only thing I rode because I don't handle thrill very well. It was...heart-breaking to see what was plastered across TVs in a couple days times in our last day in our hotel room.
@@PKLuver944 i don’t think I could even handle that, going on the ride and this happening a few days later, let alone the poor people on the day that may have witnessed it
I used to actually feel this way until I heard about a similar ride like this had the rubber part of the "boat " deflate and eventually flipped over. The people were trapped upside down and eventually downed. I don't trust any ride now...
The way those 4 people is enough to give me nightmares. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like to witness the accident and to recover the dead bodies.
We rode this ride when I was 11. It had flaws in the late nineties. We had to reach out and push the raft in front of us, up onto the conveyor belt. We bumped into the raft in front of us. Instinctively I reached out and started pushing it. Two adults on our raft took over and managed to get the raft going and up onto the belt. We we’re lucky and our lives we’re spared. I remember at the time, feeling scared and a strong, strange feeling washed over me. My older sister wanted to ride it again. I didn’t want to. Mum and dad said no, let’s ride something else. I have always felt awful for the families and the lives lost. May they Rest In Peace! We let the operators know at the end of the ride. They said, the ride was super safe. I said, could we have tipped over, they replied with a laugh and no. At 11, I knew there wasn’t something right with that ride
Thanks for sharing this, I'm now thinking this thing is actually worse than first thought and finding out that ride was as old as it was ... Makes you think, were they intentionally running it into the ground ? "Just keep it going until something happens" ? They had no intention of up keeping and updating it ? Once the ride finally breaks we throw it out for good ? Because that's how it's kinda looking to me, I'm suggesting they didn't even want that ride anymore and had no long term plans for it accident no accident
@@gtt8428 It was the most popular ride in the whole park. Of course they'll keep running it. edit: To fill your curiosity, here's a relevant section from the incident investigation pdf(I'd directly link you the whole article but youtube wouldn't like it - but googling with this should give the same result "10545784-final-dreamworld-draft-6-for-upload.pdf") 99. The TRRR opened on 11 December 1986, and at the time of the incident, had been operating for almost 30 years. During the course of its commission, the Ride had undergone a number of modifications to various components, although largely operated as it was intended to when first opened. A number of the major components of the ride were original, with only slight improvements or modifications having been made.
They're the kinds of stories that're horrifying because A.) They actually happened, and B.) You mentally put yourself in the victims shoes and try to think of any way YOU could've survibed had you been the victim instead, only to realize that there's probably no way you could've. That seems to be the common thread for the stories presented on this channel, and I love it.
That's why I like this channel. It doesn't sensationalize the deaths or the possible gory details. It's more 'this is a terrible thing that happened and, more importantly, this is why it happened, and, in many cases, this is what's been done to keep it from happening again.' So far, I can't think of a time it's been disrespectful to the victims of the tragedies it's covered. I hope that doesn't change.
Dreamworld actually wanted to open the park the day after the accident for some kind of "day of remembrance". Those plans were VERY quickly shut down. I only remember that detail since like many Australians, this story was so shocking and heartbreaking and I was checking the news every day for updates.
I remember driving past Dreamworld a few weeks after this happened. It was dimly lit, and you could see the mountains of flowers from the highway. It was a haunting image.
my friend was one of the first responders on-site as she worked there. she wasn't okay for months after. I'll never forget the look in her eyes. we all grew up on this ride as it's one of the tamer ones. absolutely tragic
"The victims sustained injuries that were incompatible with life." I'll never forget that quote from one of the responders when this happened. Such a gruesome understatement.
If the PARAMEDICS needed counseling, then I can only imagine just how badly mangled the bodies were. Dear lord....😧 Those poor kids, having to live with such a damning memory.😞
When the raft flipped the conveyer which was made of long wooden slats continued to move. Those caught underneath the raft were effectively ‘grated’ from head to waist. It was absolutely horrific for those who had to tend to the scene 😞
@@ThatRandomChannelTRC are you serious? Mangled means torn apart. Bodies can and do get torn apart. What does biology have to do with your ridiculous comment?
While I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to do so, I recommended this incident because I had yet to find a good video explaining what happened. I knew you would do an amazing job and am so not disappointed. Amazing story telling as ways 👍👍
I think the only thing I would have added is the fact that an identical incident had already happened a few years previously - it was just lucky that it was during a test run, and no one was on board. I went to Dreamworld a year or two before this happened. This was one of the few rides I was able to go on, because the park's disability access was so poor that, despite being allowed on all rides in Village Roadshow parks with just an armband from visitor services, there wasn't ever anyone IN visitor services in Dreamworld to verify my wheelchair using self for rides, so I got turned away from almost everything. I do remember vividly that the seatbelt on my seat in Thunder River Rapids was faulty due to wear. The velcro wouldn't stay done up, so I had to hold myself in the raft the whole ride. I was not keen to go on it again after that. After this incident, there were A LOT of people remembering almost falling out due to the worn seat belts.
@@LevadeNZ I think in that test run they dismissed it because they had not bothered to load the rafts with weighted test dummies. So they were running light.
@@LevadeNZ It's been over two decades since I last took that ride, and even then the belts seemed quite worn. I remember thinking that actually falling out must be fairly inconsequential, hence the dodgy restraints (meaning, you're not going to die if you were to end up in the water). I'm sure many others felt the same way. As for 'visitor services' at Dreamworld - they've always been worse than useless. I was physically assaulted (shoved hard) by a park employee for the egregious offence of using flash photography _near to,_ but _not within,_ an area where this was prohibited. Despite the seriousness of this misconduct, and several shocked witnesses to support me, visitor services wouldn't even apologise let alone make any attempt to placate me with compensatory "free tickets" or the like. Judging from your comment, supporting customers, whether they are able bodied or not, appears to have changed very little, and be of very low priority - an annoyance at best - so maintaining an empty "support" office keeps complaints seemingly low and spares them paying for a staff member skilled enough to judge the abilities/requirements of the differently-abled.
After watching a bunch of your videos and videos by dark history, I have come to the conclusion that human beings don’t really change things until someone dies.
so true. there is bit dangerous road in village/town i live, few minor accidents happened, but nothing was changed until my grandpa died in car crash on that road. after that they put speed bumps to slow down drivers and lower the amount of accidents.
Always happens like that, especially in Australia. There used to be an intersection in my small town that was notorious for accidents and near misses, and it was complained about for literally 20 years, council never did anything except fill the occasional pot hole once in a blue moon, all of a sudden a two car crash happens that kills 7 people and they all go “oh shit we need to fix the road” then within a month there is a roundabout built and the council are like “look what we did! We fixed this and made it safer for you!” As if they hadn’t been ignoring requests for 2 decades. I know of so many similar stories. It’s disgusting. Nobody cares until someone dies and even then they still only care about not getting sued.
Honestly I wonder if there was even a single engineer involved in ride safety AT ALL. As you mentioned, there are dozens of very cheap common sensors that would have prevented this: jam sensors on the belt, water level sensors, auto shuttoffs if a pump fails, obstruction sensors to tell if a boat is in the way... seriously, these are common every-day sensors. any engineer would have implemented these
My family owns a car wash and our automatics have sensors in place both to not only prevent damage to vehicles in case of malfunction, but also to prevent damage to the equipment if problems are detected. I can't imagine the risk and the cost of not having automatic shutoffs, even though the risk of someone getting hurt is extremely small. The cost of equipment burning itself up is reason enough even for a greedy company not concerned with safety.
@@SilverMe2004 Doesn't matter. If there is even the *possibility* of the raft flipping onto the conveyor belt, that is a major safety hazard and the belt should be immediately redesigned or have shutoff sensors installed along the track.
You can read the full 279 page report from the Qld Courts here: www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/641830/10545784-final-dreamworld-draft-6-for-upload.pdf Happy reading. Its a good. And you can understand why the news cant report on everything that was brought up. There is a lot.
So to correct a few points in this video: - According to most reports the children were thrown clear of the ride, onto the catwalk or station platform at the side - Two people were thrown onto the conveyor, one of them a male who was trapped underwater - Two people were trapped on the raft and sustained injuries from the conveyor - The pump had failed and was reset twice that day instead of being properly inspected and repaired because the electrician was busy with other jobs at the park - The junior operator was on her first day and received only 90 minutes of training. She was told about the e-stop which would have stopped the conveyor within 2 seconds "don't worry about that button, no one uses it". The senior operator was unaware of the 2nd e-stop button in the control room.
Your information about the operator is incorrect. It was not her first day, she had the ride before and was simply being retrained that day. She also wasn’t told to ignore the e-stop. If you want more information on what happened and what actually lead up to this freak accident you can read it at the link below. it’s a very long read but very interesting if you don’t have a weak stomach and are willing to sit through it all. www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/641830/10545784-final-dreamworld-draft-6-for-upload.pdf
@@a7me3z37 thanks for sharing the link. Definitely worth the read if you can stomach it. Just really sad and reading the 'death would have been rapid' parts was both disturbing but also glad they didn't suffer for long. But regardless would have been traumatic.
According to the official report of this incident, based on security footage: 1) The moving equipment pushed the raft into the one in front of it which was stopped, forcing it from horizontal to vertical very quickly, with violent jerks. 2) Two of the adults then fell / were thrown from the raft into the moving equipment. 3) The other two adults, still seated at what became the bottom of the raft when it went vertical, were caught in the machinery as the raft was grabbed and partially pulled down into the moving equipment before it stopped. 4) The two children remained inside the raft unhurt and were able to climb out of it onto platforms on either side. They were not thrown out.
These poor people. I've always been a scardy cat when it comes to rides, and as a kid this here is the single ride my parents convinced me to go on during our trip to the gold coast. When I saw it on the news the irony of it being the only ride my childhood self deemed safe in 4 theme parks hit hard
Yeah, it is a bit weird to think that oftentimes the rides people feel are the most safe are actually the ones that kill people. Rollercoasters for example tend to be extremely safe, but then epcott's rotating puppet show crushed a girl trying to exit to use the bathroom
I live near this park. It's just heartbreaking. They used to be so popular, but now you drive past to see all of the big rides stopped, and you just get this sense of sadness and loss
@@wasabi622 they're still open but it's definitely been hit hard by covid but I had been there multiple times after the accident and before covid hit and the line which used to almost always be so long it went further than the undercover area (which was huge) was now always pretty short. Very sad.
@@wasabi622 its still open but nobody goes. you used to drive past and always see their main attractions going, its a ghost town now. So creepy and sad
My sister used to work at dreamworld (not as a ride operator, fortunately) and I used to have annual passes regularly (at one point I think I was there every week). I honestly wouldn't go back unless they did a major overhaul of the park, and redesigned a lot of rides, but at the same time its a tricky situation because how can they afford that if they aren't getting guests. I think the problem is that it was such a beloved ride for a very long time, and seen as "safe". If it were a roller-coaster or thrill ride, or less popular it may well have been different.
One of the true horrors was for the daughter who did not go on the ride. She was standing on a bridge overhead and witnessed the gruesome death of her family. I remember that day, the news reported that the victims "sustained injuries that are totally incompatible with life", which was pretty horrifying just imagining what had happened to them.
@@snowbunnie73 Most of these rides are pretty serious pieces of heavy, powerful, industrial engineering, not far off the sort of things you'd see in the mining industry. A conveyor like that has a huge amount of torque, it'd pull you to pieces without even trying 😔. As an engineer I spend more time looking at the rides than actually riding them when visiting a theme park, when i see the various conveyors, electric motors, gearboxes, enormous hub drive hydraulic motors ect it never fails to amaze me what seriously heavy and powerful equipment it is.
This is THE theme park in Australia. Other states don’t really have big parks so we tend to travel to the Gold Coast where dreamworld is (along with water parks etc) for this kind of thing. There’s a lot of trust that dreamworld wouldn’t screw up like this. It’s a trusted name. Or was..
I am from Malaysia and love theme parks, I went to Gold Coast in 2005 and had the time of my life there having visited Dreamworld, Movieworld and Seaworld. My favourite was Dreamworld and had actually been on this ride. Just appalling to know that such a big park like that would skimp on safety features.
As an Australian, I remember hearing about this on the news and being sickened by the goriness of the deaths and feeling deeply sickened for days following. This incident has made me think twice about going on any theme park ride at all ever again, because we just can't know for sure that safety procedures are being followed.
I always got a really bad feeling about dream world and would refuse to go even when we had the theme passes, I have a really deep fear of rides to the point I don’t even ride roller coasters. When this happened I live very close by and I had to go there shortly after for a school excursion the ride was still closed. I also felt sickened hearing the details of what happened, I felt this sense of dread the entire time I was there, barely anyone was there I guess because it was so recent. I tried to back out because I didn’t feel safe going and I was told I’d fail my class if I didn’t go, it was a physics class where we used the rides torque and shit I don’t really remember, I just remember how uncomfortable I was the entire time and walking passed the closed ride I just felt so bad for everyone involved.
Same. I live on the gc and had only recently been to the park and avoided that ride because it looked old and dilapidated. What Australians and locals heard was much more horrific than what the rest of the world was told. Goldcoast is a small city really, so we heard the worst of it on the day and then the days after. No one that witnesses or that had to be apart of recovery came out the same. It was worse than any of our worst nightmares. I still feel sick to my stomach about what happened. 😢💔
if it helps to hear ill say that this ride specifically was a HUGE outlier compared to 99.99% of all rides out there and even if you're skeptical you have the ability to research the safety prodecures and regulations of every ride out there and basically all of them will be extremely safe. ardent is just an evil terrible awful company that the government should have never allowed to exist
I've always had this fear, especially when I was a kid, that I'd be riding on an escalator and it would suddenly fall through and I would get caught in and ground up in the gears. I don't know where I got the idea from but this has actually happened, sadly. This story is like a bigger version of that, and it really creeped me out. It's horrific how those people died, and it doesn't sound like it was particularly fast either. And the poor kids who survived but lost their family members....jeez.
In America nobody has ever been ground up in the gears of a stair escalator but it has happened a few times in China. The floor plate at the end came loose and a person got completely sucked into the machinery. th-cam.com/video/gz4R-Xhj9Vc/w-d-xo.html
Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don’t hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent - I don’t care which one - but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator.
Nothing makes me more furious than needless death. This was preventable. I- just can't fathom being so careless and greedy. You cannot justify this park's blatant disregard for human life. Innocent human life.
Intamin are common to have custom design in their lineup of ride. Like Top Thrill Dragster/Kingda Ka and Chinese Dueling Dragon is pretty much custom design roller-coaster from Intamin
It worked fine for many years but the big problem came when they modified the original conveyer belt design after some major maintenance when it was around 20 years old. Intamin straight up told them it's not Intamin's fault after seeing the modifications. The unmodified Intamin design has no such problems.
The worst part of this incident is that the survivors are children who watched their parents and siblings die very traumatic deaths. This by itself is horrible! I cannot imagine growing up having seen that. Its hard enough if your an adult. Those two kids… i hope they each have loved ones that have helped them through this.
I just realized that I started coming to this channel to take a break from the current social and political landscape. Im not sure what that says that I find all of these stories less depressing.
Pretty amazing considering Trump has started no new wars and signed many new peace deals, but the power of the leftist media has disturbed the mental state of the public to force them to hate Trump.
@@RepublicConstitution You assume they are American. Besides, you can be a fan of Trump and still need a break from it all. Him not starting a war doesnt mean other things aren't depressing. The rift in American culture is sad to me and the lockdowns.
I’m a local and every time I drive past I can see it’s never been as busy as it was before that day. The car park is never full anymore, not even close.
I remember this day. Australia actually stood still for what seemed like a week. Everyone was just in utter shock. It seemed like everything went slower. It was so horrible to imagine, and it’s still hard to think about. I can’t imagine what the families and friends of the victims must be going through still. Just a terrible tragedy
I am Australian and I remember this. I remember the Ambulance services describing the injuries as "injuries not compatible with life" and people complained. They thought the thermology was cold. It just a easier and professional way to describe extreme trauma resulting in death. If you do not know what it means well lets say we use the term in the railways when a person has gone under a speeding train. Instead of saying the person is in multiple bits you just say "injuries not compatible with life". That sounds better over the radio then saying "there bits of head over there, the some toros there and a leg is there. I am not sure what that bit is"
This place was one of my most fond memories when I visited Australia as a child. I remember riding this ride and have so many photos, it is really chilling to think that the same ride I sat on and loved back then to would bring about so much tragedy and pain in the years to come. Its like being classmates with a serial killer and seeing him on tv years later
I grew up not far from there and went to dreamworld heaps. I went on that ride several times, and ive been trying to figure out the feeling with knowing the whole time it was practically a death trap - this is exactly it. Spot on.
I fully get that feeling. One of my favorite rides at our local amusement park killed a kid just last summer (July 3, 2021). The safety inspector had just signed a report the day prior that found 11 safety violations, but didn't have the authority to close the ride or issue fines. After the kid died, further investigations found 6 more safety violations - including improper maintenance, unlicensed repairs with incorrect parts, staff that hadn't been properly trained, etc... I loved that place as a kid. We went every year. Ofc, after I was an adult and went back there with a season pass (one of the first things I really splurged on after getting a job), I ran into ppl I knew from school working there. That's when I learned that even though national minimum wage (which is what our state uses) had been raised to $7.25, they were getting paid a little over $5 an hour. I was shocked to learn that minimum wage doesn't apply to seasonal employees - which was almost all of the ppl that worked at the park except some maintenance ppl and management. Unsurprisingly, the family that owned the park decided to sell to an international company in December of 2021. Guess they hoped that would let them wash their hands of it (not that it will).
We also visited this park during our vacation in Australia and rode this ride with my siblings and father. Imagine mu surprise when we found out years later that this happened.
Firstly - damn you’re here too?! Secondly - its great that they survived but seeing people die infront you will traumatize to for the rest of your life
Freak Accident? This was not freak accident, this was an incident waiting to happen with crap like this going on, and then it did. Too bad the CEO and other Big-Wigs were not in the raft in place of the parents.
I just want to say, God bless all emergency personnel out there. The things you guys do is absolutely outstanding and often unbelievable. I once had the endeavor to become an EMT before I developed chronic pain and it was no longer a feasible option for me. But I've seen what it takes -- the long hours and hard work involved, the danger from reckless and mistaken druggies and criminals, the sights you see that you can never forget, the environments you have to enter, all of those extreme factors that would drive the layman to depression, insanity, or worse. Emergency services of all kind carry a valor unlike other professions but especially those who put their lives on the line for mediocre wages specifically to heal and treat others. My hat is off to you lads and lasses, and my utmost respect and love is reserved for you. I hope you know that you are not unappreciated.
I am the boyfriend of a family member of the victims, it's been incredibly difficult for the family and there's been a few other unrelated deaths that have compounded the legal issues because it means disputed claims to life insurance and belongings
Imagine the poor ride operator. A 19 year old girl. Who hasnt been shown where the stop button is. And just having to call and wait for help whilst the meat mincing is happening.
She was shown the stop button but not told what events should trigger her use of it and wasn't told to man that post all the time. She wasn't at the button when the raft started to flip so couldn't hit it, which would have resulted in no loss of life.
@@ReturnOfTheJ.D. how did the raft star tto flip, was the raft just going to the end of the ride and they were about to get off or did the flip happen in the middle of the ride. Can you describe what happened and how it happened cuz im still confused how a raft caused another to flip
@@frostedcookiedough4343 The raft in front of the one that flipped was stuck due to low water levels because of the malfunctioning water pump in that area. These rafts weight a tonne each, literally. The raft with six people on it (4 of whom later died) was being pushed into it by the conveyor belt, and water was building up underneath that raft. It mounted the other raft, or went over the top of it and then the water pressure from behind it (water being dumped into that area and maybe also the conveyor belt pushing it forward) forced the back of that raft forward such that it became perpendicular or vertical in relation to the other raft, upon which the two children jumped out quickly to their respective sides (saving their lives) and the four adults fell out of the raft. Two were trapped under the raft, suffocating to death as they were unable to move the heavy weight that was now upside down, and the other two adults were chomped and mashed up by the conveyor belt and its machinery, none of which had slats to stop them falling into it. It all depended where you were on the raft as it flipped over. The female who survived (32) took some time to bleed out after being taken out of the conveyor belt machinery, and was alive and conscious, moaning in agony, most of that time, according to witnesses who posted what they saw online.
@@frostedcookiedough4343 They weren't able to get off the ride at the time it flipped without jumping into the water or onto a small section of decking and the two children were closest to those points so they did that.
Please do the 1973 Isle of Man Summerland disaster Mr Horror. Long forgotten, many lives lost. Would make a fascinating addition to your superb video inventory.
Yes please cover! My dad, grandmother and great grandmother were survivors. Even to this day my dad can't bring himself to talk about it so I don't even know the exact details of their experience; apart from that I think he had to climb up some kind of wall and pull the others up to escape. My grandmother had to have skin grapths for her wrists/hands after the burns she recieved. It makes me feel emotional to think how easily they could have been lost and how lucky they were when others weren't.
There's a real good in-depth and fascinating book written by someone from Birmingham University. Chapter 1 is at www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-les/gees/staff/fire-disaster-c1.pdf To get subsequent chapters you need to edit the url to c2, c3 etc.
I remember when this happened. The way some of the blankets are positioned in the aerial shot tells you all you really need to know about how horrific the accident must have been. The children are going to live with this memory forever, absolutely tragic.
When I heard that two kids survived I slapped my hand over my mouth so hard, they saw their family members die a horrific death and heard their screams, I am going to cry.
two victims fell from their seats while the other two were actually trapped in their seats under the gears and axel of the ride. one of them floated out because he was not wearing his seatbelt, but the woman next to him was wearing her seatbelt and was stuck in the machine. the kids only survived because they were light enough to keep the velcro seatbelt intact. it was also found that one adult may have been saved had the seatbelt been a lap buckle rather than the velcro.
@@lokiwiseyt8608 While it's still terrible what happened to them, it lowers my anxiety by giving me a less gory image in my head on how this whole thing transpired, so I thank you for that document.
I went on this ride in 2010 with my children and I remember feeling really unsafe on it. It was just such a clunky ride. I thought then that there was something wrong with it. When this accident happened it gave me the chills because of my own memories from it in 2010 and sadly, it didn't surprise me.
That memorial garden actually turned out to be a new roller coaster. No memorial ever built and they still have not payed the settlement. Was all PR BS from them until the story died down
Me and my family were on this ride exactly 2 hours earlier that day and left once this event happened. It scared my mother and myself shitless and i remember her crying out of fear and sadness from what happened.
This was so shocking when it happened. I was in the US at the time working at Disney and I remember the day after this happened every single water ride on property was closed and drained for maintenance... I don't know if it was a coincidence but it definitely spooked me.
They fiddled with this ride so that it had gaps where things could be yanked under. I doubt Disney is that stupid. Tho they had a few deaths and cover-ups. See the cruise ship vanishings...
Nowadays, Disney seems extremely thorough in regards to their safety protocols. Like, if computer sensors detect anything off or weird, a ride will shut down automatically. To be honest, I’d much rather have a ride that stops because of minor things than a ride where the “stop” button is apparently too hard to find.
I would think they did that intentionally rather than coincidence. Seeing a catastrophic failure like this in a previously safe park would probably make you question the workings of your own rides and safety mechanisms
Damn, I remember this being on the news here. They never said the park guests were crushed by a conveyor belt. Just that they had drowned. I guess that part was too morbid for local news to want to broadcast.
They clearly must have mentioned it because one EMT was pilloried in the media over the fact he used the term "injuries incompatible with life" when describing victims. You don't get torn apart by drowning.
@@krashd "Injuries incompatible with life" is such a vague description though, that could literally mean anything, I mean not getting enough oxygen is an injury that isn't compatible with life.
@@TheSonic1685 What it means though is a polite way of saying "I know for a fact the person was dead". In most first world countries first responders are not allowed to pronounce death because it would open up a myriad of legalities. Only a trained doctor can ever say "This person is dead" as they are qualified to do so, this means that any EMT or paramedic or first aider on the scene must carry out CPR continuously on a person until a doctor relieves them. Now how does someone like that get out of performing CPR on a decapitated head or a body that has lost all of it's intestines? They can declare a witness and then state "the victim had injuries incompatible with life". Then they and the witness will have statements taken and if their statements later match up with the autopsy then they can be excused for not carrying out CPR. It's all about who can sue who these days..
I don't know where "here" is for you, but I remember hearing this story. I didn't have tv by 2016, so it was online news, but same thing was said: That they died from drowning. This is literally my first time hearing that they were ripped to shreds after dropping onto the belt or through the space into "the mechanics". Nor did I know that 2 kids survived, and that they were related to people who were shredded. NOR did I hear that one of the kids was a 12 yr old who begged for "one more ride" before leaving the park that day. This story just went to a whole new level compared to what US news wussies ever mentioned - that I saw.
@@Anna_Stetik News networks are usually vying with one another to see who can release the story first and so the first reports are almost always wrong. Since this involved deaths on a water ride the first reports to reach journalists would be "four dead on water ride" and then whatever questions they would be able to ask before the cops push them away would likely be answered by "I didn't see much but I do know all four ended up in the water". So it first appears on the evening news as drownings. This happens with about 90% of news stories, you only find out much later that the "husband murdered by an axe-wielding home intruder" really died by falling down the stairs and landing on his own gardening tool.
I remember this ride, rode it plenty of times. Initially I found it really fun. But as I got older, and the more times I concluded the ride on that conveyor, the more uneasy I felt. Eventually I got such a bad feeling, I refused to even ride it. Last I rode was a month before this tragedy. Gut feelings can sometimes pay off.
The conveyor belts at the checkouts in my local supermarket stop automatically if they become obstructed.
There is literally better protection in place for my eggs.
I know I really shouldn't have laughed, but that last line was great.
Yeah, this was disgusting. I'm surprised no safety inspector caught that THERE WAS NO STOP MECHANISM. Corporate short-term thinking in a nutshell.
Everything of this nature has to have a safety loop with various switches, where any one switch pressed/tripped makes the loop go open circuit and the whole ride shuts down. That and the water level by design should have never been allowed to dip below the level of the conveyor even if the pumps both stopped. I visited this park once when younger.
The problem is that while operating normally the motors that drive the conveyor have to make a lot of power and torque to pull these tubes loaded with people out of the ride and up the ramp. Sometimes they are pulling multiple tubes loaded with several passengers each. The load on the conveyor can vary greatly at different times. Driving one tube into a second one with enough force to flip them, smash them together and then grind up the people unfortunate enough to have fallen on the belt is probably all well within it's normal torque operating limits. The failure is that the ride operators were not taught the proper procedures on how to stop the conveyor in case of an emergency like this. There should have been multiple, redundant red e-stop buttons located around the platform for both the conveyor and the rotating platform. And also if one of the water pumps shut down the ride should be stopped immediately. But even still, ride operators who are trained properly would never allow something like this to happen. The operators hitting the e-stop should be your last line of defense against an accident like this, but to not train them about this is straight up negligence.
yes years later in entirely different situations yes
Incredible !!!
What's really depressing is the 12-year-old girl blames herself for her mother's death after she had begged to go on the River Rapids. She is not only dealing with the trauma of what happened, but survivor's guilt, and I really just want to hug her.
Oh that's horrible ;_;
beyond horrible
that’s devastating. if I blamed myself for ANYONE’S death I think I’d eventually go insane. poor girl.
That poor girl... I couldn't imagine. I hope she finds some peace in her mind soon.
How do you know this? That’s awful
When witnesses need counseling, you know it's bad.
When paramedics need counseling, you know it's fucking horrific.
I can't imagine how counseling is going to help you, minus going over it until it's mentally old news and you move on.
@Abrupt Segue Yeah, I've always felt bad for first-responders. The things they see, they're awful
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 You don’t know how counselling could help because you imagine it’s just going over something over and over again, and you don’t immediately think it’s because your understanding of counselling might be incomplete?
Paramedics should constantly have counselling, unless they’re psychopaths or have an exceptional support network. No human is designed to witness that concentration of human suffering.
@@o5-7firefox I’ve always felt that we see those things so the majority of people don’t have to. I actually think it’s a shame that TV & movies etc are becoming so realistic & that actual deaths & dead bodies are creeping into YT & onto the news & current affairs, because I don’t think the average person needs to see the reality of what we do.
I remember when this happened. That’s when I learned the technical phrase “incompatible with life”.
Usually, paramedics do not pronounce a patient dead because it’s more difficult to verify such things out in the wild and there’s always a chance that a patient may be resuscitated at the hospital.
However.. some injuries are so severe that there is no chance in the world that the victim survived. Hence, paramedics will declare someone to have suffered wounds that are “incompatible with life”.
Yes, generally a euphemism for decapitated or dismembered.
I didn't actually know this detail, thanks for clarifying. I think another reason paramedics don't declare death is because legally only a licensed doctor can officially pronounce a patient dead. Might be wrong on that, but that was my understanding.
Death on arrival is a thing, sadly enough...
@@FoxSullivan DOA means the absence of a heartbeat/respiration upon arrival at the hospital, not necessarily legal death. there are cases of DOA patients living to tell about it
@@PiraticalNonsense as a former paramedic, you're completely correct. "Incompatible with life" means that by their observation there isn't a chance of survival without them actually making the call on declaring them dead. This is just a very sad story.
The paramedics on scene described some of the victims as having "injuries incompatible with life", and social media users jumped on him for using a phrase like that. Not only is it a medical term, it's probably the nicest way they could have put the extent of injuries of the victims. Disgusting how social media will jump on anyone in the case of a disaster, even those that tried to help.
Cancel culture idiots are a dying breed, thankfully.
Wtf? I don’t even see the issue with that phrase.
he could of said the bodies ended up looking like ground beef with spaghetti tendons. but he didnt. he said it in a much better way.
now tell me, assholes who jumped on his case, which one would you rather him say, disgusting description, or detailed enough description to keep YOU from vomiting.
If my memory serves, the poor paramedic was facing the press less than an hour after attending what was probably one of the most dreadful scenes he'd ever attended, and was responding to a journalist asking what the scene was like and what action he had taken. He was attempting to explain that he had not administered first aid, and the reason why, keeping in mind that he was on air and so he was trying to be sensitive about how he phrased it. I mean, the poor bloke could hardly say "I didn't administer first aid because the bodies were in pieces," could he?
@Unusual Knowledge The message of modern social media is "My ignorance is just as valuable as your knowledge."
I have a shirt from my trip to Dreamworld from 20 years ago that says "I survived Thunder River Rapids"
It's quite sad and ironic now.
Oh god... please never wear that shirt again 😔
oh damn, that shirt didn't age well.
Ironic =/= fitting
How much do you want for it?
@@Cynder44 I'll say. It's size M, it doesn't fit me at all anymore
Australian here. From memory, Dreamworld was closed for more than a month afterwards. What you didn't mention is that the children who survived had to watch their mother and uncle drown. That's something you would never, _ever_ get over.
Did they drown? It sounded from his description like the conveyer dismembered them.
@@jeffreymccarthy7583 I've seen this reported before, some sources say all 4 were killed by the conveyor but some sources say only two were killed by the conveyor and two drowned, my thinking - which is a bit gruesome - is that all four were killed by the conveyor but only two died immediately due to the catastrophic nature of their injuries while the other two effectively survived being pulled down into the mechanism but had otherwise survivable injuries had they not been underwater.
Either way I don't think any child saw their parent drown, they would have seen them get dragged into a mechanism that was dismembering people and that is a bit more traumatising than watching someone drown. 😐
@@krashd in the inquest the coroners determined that they all died from crush injuries with no contribution from drowning, but either way still completely horrific and preventable
@@crowgang6678 Yeah, I read the coroner's report after watching this video and to be honest it puzzled me. It turns out nobody was dismembered in any way, in fact none of the victims lost so much as a finger - All four died of crush injuries, with the exception of one guy who died from an almost decapitation whilst still being a crush death.
The lack of gruesomeness is not what puzzles me however, it's what killed the two who fell on to the conveyer. The two folks who fell backwards into the "conveyor-meets-raft" system died within 20 seconds, one had his head almost pulled off by the planks of the conveyor while the other had his ribcage crushed by said planks as they passed over his body in the 14 seconds it took for the conveyor to come to a stop.
The two adults who were on the extreme edges of the raft (the two first killed were at the back of the raft, while the two surviving children were at the front of the raft), fell out of the raft and onto the periphery of the conveyor as their raft shook. Both were seen to slip through the gaps in the conveyor (which became an incident in itself) but no mention was made of how they came by their crushing injuries.
Now you have to study the mechanism to picture this next bit in your head but if the two who fell "through" the plank gaps had landed on the chain ratchet system that moved the conveyor the most likely injury would be a lost limb or missing fingers/hands/elbow. There was nothing crushing in there, just cogs and chains that could pull an arm off.
This is what I cannot get my head around.
@@krashd yeah, I mean there's no conspiracy theory since they obviously died, but it would be better to see an expert's diagram as it's hard to picture it.
I think one of the most horrifying parts of this tragedy is that, reportedly, the family of the surviving girl had been planning to leave the park, but she asked for just one more ride. Her father stood outside the ride with their infant and he SAW that raft tip the mother of his children into the machinery, with his daughter clinging onto the seat for dear life. Absolutely horrifying. He went missing in 2021, and it's been assumed that he took his own life because of the trauma of witnessing the accident, as well as the stress of fighting Ardent for rightful compensation.
If that's true that's pretty selfish, too leave his daughter to live with that trauma for life and now not even have a parent left
@@nicoledoubleyou seriously, eff you - you have no effing clue.
That man quite literally watched helplessly as his wife got ground into mincemeat, fought unsuccessfully for years for compensation from the party responsible, and tried his best to raise his traumatized daughter and her sibling while he was battling what must have been a severe case of PTSD.
Moreover, your comment demonstrates your complete lack of understanding and compassion of what it's like to be suicidal. Depression at its worst will make a person genuinely feel as if he is a burden on others and better off dead. He may well have thought his own demise was the least selfish thing he could do for them!
@@nicoledoubleyou its selfish to expect a person with severe mental distress to live through life fighting their own brain every moment of their existance without help. don't accuse victims of being selfish because of their own mental turmoil, its a disgusting mindset to have. the daughter deserves so much better, but it it not the fault of the father.
@ih8bs666
He went missing. Don't assume shit.
@@Aggrofire
He went missing. Don't assume shit.
"Immediately plead guilty"
Good of them.
"Wanted to build a memorial garden"
At least they are making up for their mistake
"Has yet to fiscally compensate the families"
what
reddit comment
@@IluvBTBAM Y I K E S
Well, a rich man has as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel passing through the eye of the needle.
This is why. Love of money is the root of all evil.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 That makes exactly zero sense. Being successful doesn't mean you're a bad person and it doesn't mean you kove money, although that is the case for many rich people, not all of them are "evil"
Just pointing out, not only are they yet to financially compensate the families, they haven't yet built the memorial garden either. I think they're hoping that if they stall long enough Australians might forget what happened and they can quietly shelve it. In your dreams, Dreamworld execs - not a chance in hell.
THE FACT THAT NOT EVEN THE STAFF KNEW WHERE A STOP BUTTON WAS IS INSANE
well the maintenance staff didn't know about it, they didn't say the ride operators didn't know about the stop button.
There were two ride operators on. It was the junior operator's *very first day* on the ride and she'd had just a couple of hours of training that morning. The senior operator was distracted by loading/unloading other rafts, and didn't realize the rafts were on a collision course until about 15 seconds before it happened, and it sounds like he panicked initially and wasn't able to stop the conveyor belt in time.
We don’t know if the workers may have lied about that to save their own ass from getting in trouble.
Usually a STOP button is next to the START button, those staffers are more stupid then a donkey.
Bruh E stops are always the first thing I figure out at a new job can save my life ore others.
the phrase “improvements to safety were put off due to budget concerns” is never a phrase that should be said. this incident shows such a chilling disregard for safety.
Greed. Plain and simple greed. That’s what happens when someone who’s never worked an amusement park invests and becomes CEO solely for profit.
Yet, if anything is going to be put off due to budget concerns - it'll always be safety, because safety doesn't sell tickets, and lack of thereof is not visible to guests. And most people greatly underestimate the risks of bad things happening - until they see any kind of accident in person. This is the same mechanism that makes people break the speed limits. They think - 'We're gonna be fine' - and in fact almost always they are right. Almost.
It may sound extreme, but for me this level of disregard for safety measures just to save a few shekels is not manslaughter but murder. Sure, there is no plan to kill a specific person in cold blood but it's definitely as bad to value human life this low and even think about taking the risks of fatal accidents.
I hope the people who where responsible never get a happy moment in their life again with all the suffering they've caused. Not only on the surviving children and the families of the deceased but also on the emergency units and the ride operators who weren't trained and didn't know what was going on before it was too late. They will probably blame themselves even if they didn't knew better.
@@TheGasMaskGuy96 since the video hasn’t mentioned it I assume no one was sentenced to prison and that makes me so bitter. Just imagining that those who are responsible living their lives, going out with friends and laughing makes me so angry. Their greed brought horrific death and tragedy and yet they are free.
In short, capitalism always happens eventually. Even if a company starts out safety focused, eventually someone figures out that cutting just a few corners will increase profits, and when nothing bad happens, they cut a few more, and the process inevitably escalates until tragedy happens.
Have been on that ride so many times.
Dreamworld initially tried to blame a young girl ride operator, she was never shown how or when to use the emergency shut down.
My cousin worked there as a ride operator and I'm blown away by his stories.
You mind sharing some stories? I love learning about what happens behind the scenes
@@T3noir He was paid fuck all as most of them were, they did theory training and the practical training received was much like the young girl who operated this ride it was rushed and dodgy.
I'd heard about harnesses not locking into place, but they still had the seat belt back up so it was fine.
most of the operators are highschool/just graduated age. It shouldnt be on them to learn the emergancy procedures themselves. I simply cannot understand why they were never taught any of this.
But i also have a lot of memories as a kid going on this ride, it was even my families favourite ride from Dreamworld, its always crazy to think about how this couldve happened at any point. Knowing what we know now its hard to believe an incident didnt happen earlier at Dreamworld.
Vicarious liability means the owner, supervisor and those in authority are the ones responsible for the actions of an employee if that employee acts in accordance with the training provided to them.
@@MrAshyb87 Back in my day, the rafts didn't have harnesses, just big lap-sash blue velcro belts!
I will never forget the day this story broke.
It was massive here in Australia. We thought it was just a horrific accident but the systemic failures were unbelievable and the accident could have been avoided. So weird to know that I went on that ride- it was actually my favorite ride in the park. RIP to those that passed away in the accident
Woah. I posted a comment including something like, I couldn’t count how many times I’ve been on EXACTLY this type of ride, but I cannot imagine having this BEEN YOUR FAVORITE RIDE. That is just crazy. And agreed, this whole incident is an outrage start to finish.
It really was hey.. and its still on going.
@@laurelsilberman5705 I went on this ride so many times and i was in dreamworld A WEEK before this happened and went on this ride. its so scary to think that this happened a week later.
It’s a shame they tore it down. Should have kept it going but asked riders to sign a waiver.
@@madiannc one of the biggest reasons they died that this video failed to mention was that dreamworld had removed one out of every two slats on the conveyor belt meaning that the gaps between the slats were big enough for people to fall through
You know the reality of this is that 4 human beings were thrown alive into a meat grinder while their children heard and saw their grizzly deaths and the perpetrators have YET to start paying them compensation. Jezus.
most realistic comment here
Not only, they Didn't Go To Jail!!!!!!
There is no justice when a rich person commits a crime.
@@RenegadeShepTheSpacer Jesus fucking Christ, chill out, Guevara.
@@RenegadeShepTheSpacer Cuba is anything but free.
Those two kids who lived are scarred for life for sure. You're not gonna see four people die like that and walk out the same person.
Especially when you think what the deaths must have looked like for seasoned ambos to need counselling. It must have been horrific
@@distrae And two of the victims were their mothers. Poor little ones.😢
@@mondenkindqueen oh man.... poor kids😔
@@GreenGlo1991 And to think, probably the only reason those kids are alive, is because the adults weight caused the side they were on to tip up instead of down.
I don’t know. Nobody deserved to have that happen to them.
Right no fucking way...
The worst part about this story is last year the 12-year-olds father (husband of Kate goodchild) went missing and likely committed suicide because of what happened. Cannot even imagine what she’s going through losing her father after her mom and uncles..
The father could not deal with the loss of his wife at all. According to older articles, the poor girl had to "hold the family together" and help a lot with raising her baby sister. She tried to be brave for her father all those years and still couldn't safe him. This is so incredibly sad.
@@awetistic5295 Oh snap.. just learning of this today. Dave Turner.. I found some articles from June 2021 but nothing since.. they found his car but nothing else.
Here I thought the "worst part" was 4 people being killed so brutally.
@@awetistic5295 So that poor girl had to be instantly turned into the mother for her sister and the head of household. OMG! I hope that poor girl has received intense therapy in order to live a life as close to normal as could be expected under the circumstances. If she doesn't turn to drugs or alcohol then that is one strong woman!
Yeah sure…they all “go missing” or “commit suicide”
The worst part of this is the family were about to leave, but the kids convinced them to go on "one last ride". That was the ride that killed their mother and uncle. Can you imaging living with that for the rest of your life? It breaks my heart.
Its horrendous for those poor kids to have to think that for the rest of their lives. The sad reality is that if they hadnt gone on the ride it would of been someone else that died that day
It’s a fucking nightmare
"One last ride" sounds so sad in this context
It was "one LAST ride"
That is why they usually put water rides last in the park , so if you get wet , you're going home anyway
The thing that really gets me with this story. Is the fact that the only survivors, were children of the victims. How horrific and traumatic must it be to lose your parents in an accident you survived. I feel sorry for those 2 children and the negligence on that ride is truly horrible.
Yeah that's true but it's better they survived if anyone did. I'm sure the parents would feel nothing but guilt the rest of their lives if the roles were reversed.
I'm wondering if they survived because they were smaller and lighter?
@@arianebolt1575 It's mainly because of their position on the ride -- the children were at the front so they were able to grab on quickly when the ride went vertical, but the adults were at the back and fell backwards immediately
Somehow the fact that it was only children who survived, and probably children with massive guilt for begging to go on the ride at that makes it so much worse. With that much chaos as well, the parents likely died not knowing if their children were safe or not.
@@michalaswindail783 Yes, because it was the "safe" ride you'd mostly go on it if you were a child or with one. Those poor children are definitely not responsible but I don't doubt they'd feel that they are regardless
It’s chilling how most of these similar incidents could be prevented if the person in charge actually do their job and not be greedy.
It’s amazing how maybe businesses run this way too. The company I run a flexo press for cuts corners and it blows my mind
Yeah true greedy and negligence
As a australian i can assure you its less about being greedy and more about being lazy
@@MegaCharliehunter No, this is owners and operators being cheap. Everything flows from there.
@@weemadando without seeing the full results of the investigation it is pure speculation. I think the ultimate cause is inadequate risk assessment hence risk not adequately mitigated. Given the fact that there were no criminal charges laid (as far as i know) criminal negligence was not proven. If they had known the risk and not acted they would then be open to criminal charges. Ignorance is no better than negligence... but amusement parks are run by teenagers and other minimum wage employees. Without a sufficient safety management system, which by definition is supported by an adequate risk assessment you're relying on those teenagers to identify and mitigate the risk on your behalf.
It recently became public that the husband of Kate Goodchild and father of the surviving 12 year old girl went missing in July 2021. His car was found at a river crossing outside of Canberra and it is believed he committed suicide by jumping into the river. A search was mounted but called off after nine days. There has been no update since.
jesus christ, that is absolutely haunting to learn. i can't imagine the trauma their daughter must be saddled with.... poor girl.
@@xiv648 Thankfully the media are shutting the fuck up about that kid because the last update we've heard from her was almost exactly two years ago, when the girl was present at the court when Ardent Leisure Ltd copped the massive fine. Them talking about her non-stop would only fuck her up more.
That's so enraging--that the kid not only had to witness the horrific death of her mother, but her father committed suicide afterwards and left her completely alone... I hope she stays strong and doesn't hurt herself.
@tidyheidi9143 If she does end up deciding to put an end to her suffering, it'd be 100% justifiable after all she went through.
@@Keznen no, HIGHLy disagree. Kevin Hines said his first thought after jumping was regret at having jumped.
Also heard of a guy who lost his wife and 3 kids in a fire, and the guy listening goes home to find out he JUST lost his house and family in a fire! He was a drunk and said he didn't use over it.
Imagine being one of the kids who had to watch their mom die in a brutal fashion right before your eyes on what was supposed to be a special day together. All because some greedy CEO wanted to save money by not investing in safety measures. They should be put in jail.
Tbh it isn't that simple, park employees get pressured to cut corners. This accident can't just be blamed on "greedy CEOs" especially when this park is family owned
No, they should be put through the same "grinder" that those poor parents were that day. Rebuild the ride with their own greed driven profits and suffer the exact same fate. Jail would just be a get out scott free card, especially the camp cupcake they'd end up at being rich as they are.
@@christopherjunkins exactly what I was thinking!
Nick Pastorino Imagine then clinging on while witnessing that. I couldn’t imagine anything scarier 😟
@@Be149xo You could have ten minutes knowing your plane is going to crash (Skynyrd).
The bodies would have been torn apart, mangled around the gears and such, no wonder the first respondents required counselling after this, one of them even got PTSD and became a recluse
How would you know that? About the emt?
@@christnestrider185 wow.. if he ever reads this then God bless you man... takes courage to do what you do and even more to keep going after something like that..
@@DocLogic123 I mean I super hope he doesn't because that would mean watching a horror video about his trauma
@@eiosti he already knows the story more than anyone.. if anything, he might find someone who's went through the same type of trauma who he can relate to..
@@DocLogic123 sure sure but PTSD means you don't get "used to" the story. Any number of triggers or literally anything at all could send you back to the instance of trauma. It would be unwise for him to be seeking out videos like this one
As an Australian, I should mention something about this ride - it was the most 'mild' of the rides in the park. The only stuff more gentle was the Wiggle's Big Red Car ride. It was the sort of ride you would go on if you had people who were too young/elderly/frail to go on any of the other rides. Part of what was so shocking was that this ride was so gentle, so babyish, that if you asked someone to guess which ride had an accident, nobody would've guessed that it was the River Rapids Ride. And if you asked them to guess how it happened, they would've said that somebody got out of their seat during the ride or something. Nobody would've guessed that it happened on that ride, the way that it did.
i know right..... i am scared of this kind of stuff and roller coasters breaking etc and i would always go on the river rapids because i though it would be the safest even if it did break......
So crazy. Whenever my family wanted a break from the big rides, we did the rapids ride. I can’t believe 2 years old were allowed on this ride !!
The ride being a gentle one probably created the sense of complacency amongst the park staff, fundamentally though any large piece of powerful machinery on a mild ride is as dangerous as one on a very intense ride.
They had the same ride at worlds of fun called fiery of the Nile. Fun ride. Relaxing. Didn’t realize how deadly the thing could be
I'm Australian too and I remember this day like it was yesterday, the Whole country mourned those 4 who lost their lives and we were shocked it could ever happen
I appreciate that you don't use dramatic music and see it as a respectful way to convey the story of this awful tragedy.
I appreciate the straightforward title and thumbnail too. A lot of channels would be like "These people got on a theme park ride, then THIS happened..."
I was at Dreamworld on holiday the day before this happened. I took my whole family on that ride.
Hearing what happened just 24hrs later still sends chills down my back.
Never could you imagine such a thing could happen. Those poor people, the absolutely gruesome and painful way to die.
Life is so fragile
Ah, I was on that ride at Kentucky Kingdom with my daughter a week before this girl's feet were torn from her body edition.cnn.com/2007/US/06/21/six.flags.accident/ . It is chilling how many close calls we have in life over silly things like 'amusement'. If there is a takeaway from this, it is 'don't trust people foolishly with your children's lives because a corporation says it is safe'. Corporaticans LIE, it is their raison detre.
This isn't theme park related but one year my husband and I were on vacation and found a restaurant we really liked. We had dinner there one night and went back for lunch the next day. Later that day, like a couple of hours later a person walked into that restaurant and started randomly shooting, and there were fatalities. It shook us up to say the least. You just never know....
My mum, auntie and I were there two days before it. Hearing it on the TV in the hotel room we were staying in shook all of us. Still can't believe this happened
I had a similar experience where I went on the smiler at alton towers the day before the crash. Absolutely terrifying how close you get.
Four years later and they haven’t paid up? Disgusting. The victim’s families may have to haul them back to court for non-payment.
The park does not have to pay the victims families, they were fined the 3.6million for failure to comply to WH&S which is paid to the government (or wherever the money goes) it does not go to the family victims involved.
The only ones that can technically sue for compensation are the children that were on the raft. They can sue for psychological damages but other family members cannot. Idk how it is everywhere else but if a family member was not there at the point of incident to witness the tragic accident, then as unfair and terrible as it sounds they are not directly involved with the investigation. Nor are they legally involved with the court. They can speak on behalf of the family and kids, but cannot tell the kids to do anything or sue for compensation themselves.
@@b97p.19 In Queensland, the wrongful death legislation provides that a claim for damages may be brought by the executor or administrator of the deceased’s estate. If there is no executor or administrator, or if no action is brought by the executor or administrator within six months after the death of the deceased, an action may be brought by and in the name of any person for whose benefit such an action could have been commenced.
What's a life worth? Money doesn't being them back
@@johnnybrown7810 Whatever you insure it for.
@@b97p.19 That's why it's so important to establish The Family Trust.
This story sounds like it should have happened in the 70s or 80s. Its terrifying to know it only happened four years ago. While many lessons have been learned, just the thought of how those died is spine chilling. Another well put together and respectful account video.
Agreed. I'm a big thrill seeker, and coaster addict. I'll go skydiving, bungie jumping, ride any coaster, even sketchy rides at the fair. I'll be damned if I'll ever go on a river rapids ride again though. I have submechanophobia so water rides have always freaked me out, but this specific accident was enough for me to swear them off for good.
@@jameswhite6612 what is submechanophobia?
@@rudimentaryganglia lmgtfy.app/?q=submechanophobia
Right? I heard IMAX, and I’m like, this is darn recent history.
@Deborah Shaw Computerization and multitudes of redundant systems in modernized parks make rides incredibly safe compared to then. Safer than your own car in many cases. Of course, when a park cuts corners and doesn't allow the proper engineers to build their ride, this happens.
The Thunder River ride at Six Flags over Georgia in the US malfunctioned when it first opened, too. My best friends brother was one of the park staff working the ride that day. One raft flipped over and the guests were trapped underwater, upside down. He and several other staff dove in and manually released the safety belts, saving the life of every rider. Such a scary day.
I remember when this happened. My mother wouldn't even allow us to go to Six Flags after that.
pretty sure one of the 3 kids died...
Six flags seems to have a lot of stories.
@@mifo2000 I can't remember well but you might be confusing that with what happened at adventure land?
Six flags over texas had a drowning on a ride like this as well raft flipped over I had rode the ride before the accident
Oh this was so horrifying when it happened. I live in Queensland and have ridden the River Rapids ride as a kid, as I am sure many SEQlders have. The fact that they tried to blame the 15 year old girl operating the ride when she hadn't been trained properly was disgusting and appalling. It was a failure in Dreamworld's internal safety systems that allowed this to happen. It was the fault of no one else but the corporation that owns the Theme Park. I feel so sorry for the poor families and especially the children who witnessed their relatives horrendous deaths. Dreamworld was closed for quite a while afterwards and people were not keen on going back initially. I don't know what attendance is like these days. I haven't been there for years.
It’s funny how they blame a 15 year old girl and not the dipshit in charge who made budget cuts. “oh oh that’s hindsight bias we cut the budget so low it couldn’t function so we didn’t MEAN to dismember people even though we did in direct result of our shitty greed so here blame this poor peasant child”
Freaking disgusting
That’s terrible! I honestly feel so bad because that girl probably could have thought it was her fault and probably is traumatized and guilty for not being able to do anything.
"15 year old girl in charge of the ride" excuse me wtf
@@undercoverfbi3155 Not 15, 18 years old actually, but yeah, the point still stands
@@huh7270 My friend worked at dreamworld and knew the girl that operated the ride. The operator was hospitalised several times after the incident due to some quite gruesome suicide attempts, not too sure how she's doing now though. Its disgusting that a large corporation tried to blame it on the operator when they wouldn't install some cheap sensors and actually fix their ride
When my family and I went to Dreamworld some time before the fatal accident, I noticed that the water level at the top of the conveyor belt was extremely low.
Our boat bumped hard into the boat in front and slightly lifted.
I believe that Dreamworld were aware of this issue with the pumps way before the accident but chose to ignore it.
It was completely preventable.
That's pretty scary...glad you're ok
If you operate an amusement park, you CANNOT cut corners when it comes to the safety of your guests. No excuses.
@@rustinstardust2094 we were thankfully fine. I was a bit concerned at the time but never imagined an accident like this could happen, but after what happened to us, i can see just how the accident happened (boats all piled up at the top, low water level and nowhere for your own raft to go) I'm still saddened and horrified about what happened to the other family. What a terrible way to die :(
@Thora Friganza I agree. I went on with my husband and small children. It could have easily been us or any other family. The family that it happened to, I could not believe it at first as I thought the worse that could happen was rafts bumping hard into each other and slightly lifting. Never something this horrific. I can't believe that Dreamworld didn't get this issue of low water/pump problems rectified as safety for guests comes first.
The children will never again properly Convey intimate feelings due to their loss. The
"Improvements to safety features were deferred because of budgetary concerns."
If you operate a massively popular amusement park, you NEED proper safety equipment, even if you don't have enough money. ZERO excuses.
If you operate an amusement park you need proper safety equipment PERIOD
@@rheajoy5558 YES THAT'S EVEN BETTER
@DanNiDae Insurance covered most of the fallout. You can budget for insurance but apparently not for maintenance.
There's a saying..."If you think safety is expensive, try an accident.
Don't tell that the amusement parks in the 1980s.. those were dangerous af
My brother inlaw needed counciling for years after a similar incident. He was a first responder to a factory accident, but he knew the victim who got dragged into the machinery. I can't even imagine what sort of horror that's like.
That gives me the chills. I hope your brother in law is doing better.
A retired fire captain told me once about a horror that took years to get over, a repair tech at a factory had pulled all the emergency stops on a machine, but it somehow suddenly turned a large fan inside on anyway. Poor guy sliced up.
Said he never found out what the OSHA (US, Missouri) investigation turned up as to how that happened.
There’s a vid about some poor bastard whose own coworkers unwittingly locked him into a Bumblebee Tuna factory pressure cooker he was cleaning, and cooked him alive…
@@seanbrown9048 The Bumblebee death is so sad, and so easily prevented if the company cared
@@scruffy-thejanitor it’s beyond belief, people just having a good time, never expecting such horror…
I remember being there only 1 year before this accident. My partner and our daughter and her special needs sister were on the ride and one of the rafts got stuck on the same part, forcing our raft to push up and almost flipped several times til I yelled out to them to fix it. A staff member then used a pole to push the stuck raft. It saddens me that it was a KNOWN issue and was obviously ignored. So sad.
Omg that’s so scary. I last went on the ride in April 2016, and had a blast. However my mums made a weird comment saying she felt like she’d never ride that again and had a bad feeling that something really bad could happen, especially as 2 year olds are allowed on the ride, and from experience, my little brother jumped around a lot. !
The water pump needed to be replaced for many weeks...it was a mantinance problem not the ride itself.
2/3 of the slats were removed from the conveyor belt. This allowed their bodies to go in between the gaps and they basically got mashed to bits.
@@Heavens-Humanaterian-Army Rafts getting stuck had been happening since 2001. The ride itself was unsafe.
Holy shit, that’s terrifying!
The conveyer belt should never have been that dangerous to begin with. It should be a flat solid surface.
Why would you build a body mangler under a freely moving open raft?
There was a section of the conveyor accessible to passengers while boarding, that was covered and completely flat. The conveyor at the end of the ride where this happened is, under normal operation, submerged in water. Had that been full there wouldn't have been the resistance to snag the raft in the first place. I get your overall point, but had management/staff properly operated the ride, it would be very unlikely to tip a raft in that section. Some of the rafts with larger passengers did tip to pretty steep angles during the white water rapid section though, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few rafts tipped there over the years. When I heard this on the news I assumed it tipped in the rapids section until I read otherwise some time later
@@JordyValentine But that's exactly clara :v's point. Coulda, shoulda, woulda but....they didn't. There needs to be redundancy in place for every possible safety measure because you can't rely on people to do it. In a perfect world your point is valid, but this world is far from perfect.
@@Floridafanatic28 Covering it in water doesn't address the danger. A person ending up outside the raft is an obvious safety issue that should have been addressed along the entire route of the ride. This shouldn't be some weird edge-case that no one would think of. Rafts getting stuck is another seemingly obvious safety issue that should have been considered.
@@Floridafanatic28 my point, as someone who has ridden this very ride many times before it was removed, is that had the ride been operated properly, the conveyor would not have been the dangerous part of the ride. I don't disagree that the ride could have been designed better
The conveyer was actually modified. When the ride originally opened it operated with all the wooden slats and was a flat surface but for some reason a few years prior to the accident they removed 60% of the wooden slats creating the large gaps
The second he mentioned the giant mechanical conveyor I immediately thought "I know where this is going..."
Well, they only usually go two ways.
Yup... I was thinking oh no, oh no, OH NO.......
Just looking at the picture of the conveyor belt made it obvious these were going to be a ‘meat grinder’ incident.
Fuuuuuuucccc I know right
They should have named the attraction "The meat grinder"
Minor things to note; Dreamworld wanted to open the park the *day after*. The Queensland Police Service reminded them that it was an active crime scene, and opening the park would have made their lives a lot more difficult
Furthermore, a number of staff who were first responders to the scene were left understandably traumatised by the incident. Dreamworld (Ardent Leisure) flat out refused their claims for compensation for workplace injury, taking all legal cases through to appeal and dragging their names through the media and playing dirty. Bunch of arseholes.
And to think: Those four people would probably still be alive today if the park had just followed basic safety procedures.
Yeah. It’s so chilling to think that this happened only 4 years ago. The two survivors of the ride are still children today. 14 and 16.
I worked in rides at an amusement park as a teenager. one of our rides was on of these (built by Intamin). The amount of negligence necessary, by all people involved, is mind-boggling.
@@tomthomas8781 it states in the video Intamin didn't build this ride, the park did. I guess they got hold of the blueprints somehow and decided they'd save money by building it themselves, obviously without the safety features.. This company isn't involved in this, the two shouldn't be conflated.
I don't know how quickly it all happened, from the malfunction to the final incident, but to not recognize the issue, and to not know where the emergency shut off is; that's just insane.
@@bazzle_brush You're not allowed to just build someone else's machine, getting those blueprints is called: Industrial Espionage. The moment the park opened, if this was truly the case, Intamin would instantly file a lawsuit.
I've been doing some research on this case, after seeing some people on another short video about this event say that this ride had functioned without incident for thirty years. And, well....it didn't. There hadn't been a safety assessment done by a qualified engineer since it opened in 1986, and many ad hoc modifications were never passed on to the regulator. One such modifications was a removal of some wooden slats on a conveyor belt at the end of the ride, which created dangerously large gaps under which was machinery. sound familiar?? "The coroner said managers at dreamworld had ignored pervious incidents where there had been problems on the ride and not done anything to fix underlying causes. There had been serious incidents where rafts had also flipped in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2014, but no action was taken to fix the fundamental problem." A safety manager even said it was only a matter of time before a fatal accident happened. There were individuals from the board down issuing safety concerns and no one listened. It's just sickening really. They should have lost every dime and that whole place should have been shut down. The park owners claimed they would be bulldozing the ride and replacing it with a memorial that the family would help design. And instead? They announced in late 2018 that they were building a rollercoaster that would tie into another ride right next to it. And no mention of a "memorial" has been made since. Lastly, there hasn't been much talk of how horrendous the deaths of these four people were, but the coroner said that there were external and internal injuries, meaning the ride dug deeply into their flesh. Other comments I've seen said that because of the slats being removed, the people fell through the gaps, and were pulled into or on top of the machines, which acted like a mincer. It took so long to remove their bodies because of how hard it was to pull their bodies back out of the machinery. They were so badly disfigured that the emt’s and other people who took part in the body retrieval, had to have therapy to deal with the trauma. And no jail time? Only charged 3 million?? No memorial??? Utterly reprehensible. They literally got away with murder.
www.afr.com/companies/tourism/dreamworld-tragedy-an-accident-waiting-to-happen-20200225-p5441k
Yep i agree..so sad shoukd never have happened
I read that report a couple of months back and had nightmares for a week afterwards. Absolutely disgusting misconduct. Cannot believe this happened in our country.
It's appalling that safety inspections are done, problems are pointed out and then nobody come back to check if they had been fixed.
Happened in the office I used to work at too, owner hid the fire extinguishers because they were unsightly, inspector put them in proper place and the next day they had disappeared again.
Health check for the employees, phones needed replacement because not ergonomic and causing neck issues, nothing got replaced. We employees called back the heath inspector and they said they can't force to change anything and can only point out problems. It was a low risk job but knowing this could happen everywhere is terrifying
not to mention they were fined 3.6 million but the families received no compensation?!? Pray tell where in the FUCK did that 3.6 million go? Utterly fucking infuriating.
Over in the great US, we have incidents like the Verrückt water slide accident. At least there it seems like a couple owners were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
"The recovery of the bodies was so traumatic that even some of the paramedics needed counseling afterwards." What a horrible and preventable tragedy. Those children that survived are going to carry that trauma with them.
What makes it so much worst for those kids is the adults killed where their perants.
@@captainquark9116 Because I wanted to comment on it. You don't like it, move on
This was preventable this still doesn't mean it wasn't a horrible recovery that scarred the paramedics
@@peyteneq5301 no it doesn't. No one said it didn't. It was preventable and scarred the paramedics. Both are true
@@pilar9247 I'm not saying you said that 💀 I'm just saying something on my mind
I love these types of rides cause I always felt like they were the safest. It's so gentle and calm, who could ever expect this kind of accident? This is terrifying.
Same here. I hate roller-coasters but felt safe on the river rides. Well, not anymore.
It’s so shocking, I think this was only a year after the smiler crash in England which is obviously a much scarier big ride but no one died in the incident (even though the way they both happened were kind of similar)
I've always felt the opposite. I avoid water rides/slides because you get thrown around, unlike rollercoasters which are more predictable and sturdier.
You can tell from the wood design that it was more of a custom made not the typical kind you see at every major theme park. The oh we can just do it our sells and save money approach instead of going with the tried and true design that has worked for years.
Much safer doing the real thing, with experienced guides…
I feel so bad for anyone who worked this ride on that day. Probably some teenager who never would expect that. Plus the children of the family. So sad.
I remember that in court the dreamworlds lawyer tried to point the finger at the teenager operating the ride when it was literally her first day operating such a thing and she had no training for it
Yes - one of the two operators had literally never worked on that ride before and had just had basic training that morning, and hadn't been told where everything was. IIRC when she noticed something was wrong with the water level she tried to stop the ride but wasn't familiar enough with the controls to get the conveyor belt shut down in time.
The pump failure had also happened several previous times because of a recurring electrical problem, that the park was struggling to troubleshoot because their record-keeping was so bad and the maintenance people had a hard time figuring out how their homebrew ride even worked.
Did the teenager get in trouble??? I hope not :(
@@Booyougirl If anything I hope she got therapy. I couldn't imagine being in charge of a ride during such an awful event.
I hate the fact that there are probably tons of people who saw this on the news and blamed it on the teen without considering the fact that it can very easily be the employer's fault
"the conveyor belt at this time was still moving."
That was enough for me.
literally jus paused the video after hearing that part because it’s still sinking in... shit gave me chills.
oh boy oh boy
Yep, that line brought me to tears.
Yeah, I covered my mouth in horror... That shit's horrific as hell.
😬😫
As an Australian, I was hoping you would do this one. Dreamworld’s conduct towards its employees and its cold hearted attitude towards the victims families and survivors was atrocious. They blamed employees and fought closing down the park. It’s all about money and I doubt they have learnt anything.
even when amusement parks are at their greediest they NEVER cheap out on safety, i don't understand how dreamworld is even still operating to this day because no company that is willing to bypass safety prodecures to that extent should ever be allowed to run an amusement park period
I live in Queensland Australia, I had been on this ride probably at least a hundred times in my life. What's crazy is this was considered one of the safest and most family-friendly in the entire park. Most other rides in the theme park were considered a lot more dangerous but due to this fact, they probably had better precautions in case of an emergency.
Because this type of ride is usually the safest in a theme park, if done accordingly to all security precautions and with proper emergency blockages. I work in an amusement park and the same thing happened: a water pump broke. The draft got stuck, but the conveying belt stopped, in order to not make the drafts bump into each other. the passengers of the drafts were then safely rescued and the ride shut down to repair
You might know this Rebekah! Did they change the platform at the top of the ride so it no longer rotates in recent years or did it still spin like a carousel with the flow of the water?
The removal of most of the slats on the conveyor belt was a fairy recent change too from memory..
A HUNDRED times??? Jesus how often do you go to Dreamworld?
@@roloug95 Back in high school we'd go on school trips at the end of every term and they'd usually be to a theme park.
I have a massive fear of rides and I live close by as well, this was one of the rides I also thought was safe until the accident, one of the few types of rides I was okay going on as a child-I was always going on a similar one at movie world, and now I’m just so scared of every ride, placing your life in the hands of so many unknown factors just makes me so uneasy
From the perspective of a maintenance technician, here are three solutions that would have completely prevented this absolute travesty from happening.
1.A simple trip switch at the end of the conveyor that hit the bottom of the boats and stopped the conveyor if it didn’t detect a boat after a set amount of time.
2. An interlock system which prevented the conveyor from starting unless both pumps were detected to be active first.
3. The most rudimentary. A $15 float switch that would kill the conveyor if the water dropped below a set point.
As someone who works in the industry, this horror was absolutely on the maintenance department. I would have red tagged not allowed guests on it at all until this was addressed, the big wigs bitching about lost profits be damned.
And perhaps a belt conveyer.
As a maintenance tech, I'm truly astonished they didn't have a float switch at the very least. Entirely preventable. I've worked for places that are really cheap but this is just sad.
as a person with no knowledge of this stuff. I’m confused why they even continued to keep the ride open if there wasn’t enough water. kids do dumb things like maybe trying to reach down and touch the conveyer belt thing that the circle things with seats ride on. they are so greedy. and borderline murderers for being so knowingly irresponsible.
No passengers on the conver belt!!!
4. A button to release your seat restraint in an emergency so you can (hopefully) jump free. Once those hydraulic restraints come down over your head you are trapped.
Was really sad and shocking when this happened. It affected all of us in Australia. You explained what happened very well 🙏🏻
Lots of Australians had been on the ride. It's almost a rite of passage to holiday in Queensland and go to the theme parks when you're a kid
I'm not sure if this is true but I think DreamWorld gave the victims lifetime passes to DreamWorld because of the incident
Yeah, we only really have one big location for huge modern theme parks in Australia and it's the Gold Coast (old style parks in Sydney and Melbourne called Luna Park and some smaller water parks). It was really shocking to think something like this could happen in Australia.
I've been on those rapids.. pretty much every Australian has.. that's the scary thing.
@@bgrossman exactly
i think the reason this hit australia so hard is because everyone had been on that ride. the sunny coast is a big place for tourism and at dream world, the river rapids ride is considered to be the ‘safe ride’. i’d been on that ride multiple times as a child and its one of the few rides at the park which parents feel safe letting their children on.
Gold coast
As an Aussie, going on this ride was part of my childhood, as it was for many tens of thousands of other Australians. It was so surreal when this happened.
It really was. I will never go to this place ever again. Even driving past is weird and makes me feel so uneasy.
Agreed, just kept on thinking “Wow, this could’ve been me” such a staple of my childhood
fr. i was there a week before this happened. everytime we would go to dreamworld we would go on this ride. so sad
Yep, my favourite ride in the park. Kinda sad to see it gone, but I get why they can't just fix it and reopen like so many others
We had something similar to this in England at Alton towers, I never went on the smiler ride but have been Alton towers couple times in my childhood and went on most rides, but looking at how unsafe some of rides are now as a adult does give you some kind of perspective on how fortunate you were as a child to not experience a tragedy like this, wether that meant you were a part of the accident or you witnessed it before your eyes
For the first 16 years of my life, I visited Dreamworld annually. This was the ride we went on last every single time. It was my favourite way to end the day. When the news broke of this tragedy I was heartbroken. I had been on this ride a few months prior. I can’t imagine the pain and heartbreak the families experienced. It’s truly disgusting that Dreamworld used no basic safety measures on such an important ride.
Watch some videos on Action Park in NJ. Same issues there.
But they plead guilty and didn't contest the charges. Most companies won't do that.
Yes. It was a staple ride and a good one to ride last (as you could get soaked). A tragic event and no amount of money can fix the "disgusting" practises. Especially a ride that old. The payout was a pittance and should have been much greater. Most theme parks usually don't want a memorial remembrance (reminding people of a tragedy) in their park but I would say for PR purposes they will have decided to go that route. No surprise the families are upset and want nothing to do with it. Traumatic is an understatement.
@@fredtaylor9792 plead guilty because it's about saving face and surviving. If they tried to contest it the public would have turned against them. It's always about the $. They take a small revenue loss and get to move on another day. Contesting it they would have lost anyway and then possibly faced harsher fines and criticism.
@@Yahowah777 Not necessarily true at all. You'd think you'd be right but most companies do contest it. The public tends to have a short memory, especially when it comes to their enjoyment. Here in the states anyways, it seems very common for the company to fight in court.
I really appreciate how you make clear that as long as basic safety procedures are followed, these rides are perfectly safe. A lot of channels that cover topics like this seem like they're trying to make all rides look dangerous just to scare people, and that isn't remotely accurate. So props to you for being responsible.
All machinery is dangerous when not used correctly.
There's always a danger when safety practices are not followed, and you never know what ride at what park will be the next to cause a negligent death.
My fear is that I'll be the unlucky one or some shit. I trust that the rides are safe, it's the operators I don't always trust.
I worked at a park with a similar ride. The loading area (up high) was separate from the unloading area (down below) guests were never allowed to ride up the conveyor belt. We had CCTV and monitors to view all areas of the ride. Emergency stop switches were clearly marked. Ride operators were certified and had on going training. The ride was operated through 3 test cycles with no passengers, before the park opened. No excuse for what happened.
wow. Where's that?
@@bunnymad5049 Silverwood Theme Park in north Idaho
@@noidreculse8906 thanks! xxxxxx
Yeah I was wondering why the dreamworld ride didn't have a separate disembarking platform. Just seems fundamentally unsafe to even risk people being on the conveyor in the first place.
Usually I hear these terrifying tragedies in the 70s and 80s, knowing how recent this is just gives me chills. And it happened of ignorance. It’s so upsetting and chilling
IKR, with all of the safety procedures and laws, and what we've learned from the past, this still happens. Greed though. It always come back to greed.
I mean the second he said they did it themselves i knew cut corners where gonna be the issue. Theres not a lot of home grown, homebuilt complicated rides that end well. Should have bit the bullet and hired the professionals.
These accidents still happen across the world unfortunately. There’s a reason that risk is in the fine print of the tickets
Budget cuts are lethal cuts, It's true
"It was custom built by the park"
Oh *good* that bodes well...
Yeah, you can ask Schlitterbahn Waterpark (Kansas City) how well that worked out for them, too.
@@greg_216 and son of beast
When parks modifies a construction that has been designed by a professional company such as Intamin, with engineers and architects, no wonder it would cause an accident soon or later.
Annie Sager Son of Beast was built by the Roller Coaster Corporation of America and was fired during construction for their poor construction of the ride but the rest was finished by the park. The Beast was built entirely by the park and that ride has ran without incident. It just comes down to proper safety measurements
Even if it was custom built it wouldn't have been hard to design safety features they were just complacent and didn't care
Thank you for reporting this incident without sensationalising it. Many TH-cam channels would neglect to mention that theme park rides are normally extremely safe, so thank you for putting that bit in. It is because of how safe the industry is that when an accident occurs, all efforts must be taken to ensure it can never happen again.
I also watch GP to Enthusiast. He’s also very respectful to those who are injured or die. And very good at explaining how the rides fail or close down.
@@weltonvillegal6258 GP to Enthusiast is awesome
@@weltonvillegal6258 another vote for GO to Enthusiast. I was initially put off by his seemingly-elitist sounding name. But glad I persisted because his knowledge is top notch and his explanations are very intellectually satisfying.
@@weltonvillegal6258 well cultured
Action Park: Am I a joke to you.
I live near Dreamworld and have ridden this ride more times to count over the many years I've gone to Dreamworld. This accident was horrific. I will and have never gone back out of respect for the victims.
I'm never going back out of disrespect to Dreamworld / Ardent Leisure.
I'm just around the corner from it. I also don't intend on going there.
I'm glad the children survived.
But what a shame the park had money to make all the necessary upgrades to open it a year after the accident. And money to start the memorial garden. But not enough to help the families? The two surviving children in the LEAST need counseling.
Those kids are definitely going to have PTSD, especially if the paramedics needed counseling after retrieving the bodies.
@@manifestationsofasort They may not. It depends on the kid and their level of resiliency. I know that sounds bizarre, but there’s research on this. Two people can experience the same, life-altering trauma, and yet they react to it differently. Giving children who’ve experienced acute trauma counseling does reduce the risk of them developing PTSD, so they should absolutely be seen by someone after an event like this.
Children have a biological instinct to cling onto things and if dosed with enough adrenaline they could be able to support their own weight like a primate's youth would be able to. I think the unofficial explanation for how they managed to survive is related to the stories of parents lifting cars off their trapped child etc.
What? According to this video they demolished the ride. And it's not as though they're trying to get away without paying a dime to the families, they're likely trying to mitigate the expense. You can of course debate the ethics here, trying to whittle down a compensatory payment, but you can bet the park intends to pay something substantial. They're probably just trying to negotiate something with the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs view the memorial garden as an attempt to garner enough sympathy to lower their settlement demands.
@@rafetizer Not the best optics, though. Sometimes ideas look better on paper.
"I'm scared to ride the roller coaster."
"That's ok, let's try the river ride."
👁️👄👁️
That was exactly what our thinking was when my family visited the Gold Coast in 2016. River Rapids was the only thing I rode because I don't handle thrill very well.
It was...heart-breaking to see what was plastered across TVs in a couple days times in our last day in our hotel room.
@@PKLuver944 i don’t think I could even handle that, going on the ride and this happening a few days later, let alone the poor people on the day that may have witnessed it
@@PKLuver944 Omg that is insane...all jokes aside its pretty heart breaking, im just glad the kids survived.
I used to actually feel this way until I heard about a similar ride like this had the rubber part of the "boat " deflate and eventually flipped over. The people were trapped upside down and eventually downed.
I don't trust any ride now...
The way those 4 people is enough to give me nightmares. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like to witness the accident and to recover the dead bodies.
N
Thuci
I don't mean to be gruesome but there were no bodies, just body parts.
EDIT: It turns out the victims only had crush injuries and nothing more.
@@krashd I don’t think you are gruesome. I agree with what you said.
@@krashd Actually from what I recall, none of the bodies were actually dismembered. Just... ugh... really mashed up.
We rode this ride when I was 11. It had flaws in the late nineties. We had to reach out and push the raft in front of us, up onto the conveyor belt. We bumped into the raft in front of us. Instinctively I reached out and started pushing it. Two adults on our raft took over and managed to get the raft going and up onto the belt. We we’re lucky and our lives we’re spared. I remember at the time, feeling scared and a strong, strange feeling washed over me. My older sister wanted to ride it again. I didn’t want to. Mum and dad said no, let’s ride something else. I have always felt awful for the families and the lives lost. May they Rest In Peace! We let the operators know at the end of the ride. They said, the ride was super safe. I said, could we have tipped over, they replied with a laugh and no. At 11, I knew there wasn’t something right with that ride
Thanks for sharing this, I'm now thinking this thing is actually worse than first thought and finding out that ride was as old as it was ...
Makes you think, were they intentionally running it into the ground ? "Just keep it going until something happens" ?
They had no intention of up keeping and updating it ? Once the ride finally breaks we throw it out for good ?
Because that's how it's kinda looking to me, I'm suggesting they didn't even want that ride anymore and had no long term plans for it accident no accident
@@gtt8428 It was the most popular ride in the whole park.
Of course they'll keep running it.
edit: To fill your curiosity, here's a relevant section from the incident investigation pdf(I'd directly link you the whole article but youtube wouldn't like it - but googling with this should give the same result "10545784-final-dreamworld-draft-6-for-upload.pdf")
99. The TRRR opened on 11 December 1986, and at the time of the incident, had
been operating for almost 30 years. During the course of its commission, the
Ride had undergone a number of modifications to various components, although
largely operated as it was intended to when first opened. A number of the major
components of the ride were original, with only slight improvements or
modifications having been made.
These really aren't the cheesy things you'd expect. They're just well done pieces of history.
Did someone say cheese?
Hi im the knives from 007
They're the kinds of stories that're horrifying because A.) They actually happened, and B.) You mentally put yourself in the victims shoes and try to think of any way YOU could've survibed had you been the victim instead, only to realize that there's probably no way you could've.
That seems to be the common thread for the stories presented on this channel, and I love it.
That's why I like this channel. It doesn't sensationalize the deaths or the possible gory details. It's more 'this is a terrible thing that happened and, more importantly, this is why it happened, and, in many cases, this is what's been done to keep it from happening again.' So far, I can't think of a time it's been disrespectful to the victims of the tragedies it's covered. I hope that doesn't change.
I don't get it. You think stories about people getting maimed and killed are "cheesy? What if it was one of your loved ones? 🤔
“Out of respect to the dead and to allow an investigation” I get the feeling the closure had a lot more to do with the latter than the former.
Dreamworld actually wanted to open the park the day after the accident for some kind of "day of remembrance". Those plans were VERY quickly shut down. I only remember that detail since like many Australians, this story was so shocking and heartbreaking and I was checking the news every day for updates.
Yeah, they wanted to do a day of rememberance service on the 29th, but they needed to investigate the d---s.
After they were told that they could not open, they decided, "why not honor the dead then."
I remember driving past Dreamworld a few weeks after this happened. It was dimly lit, and you could see the mountains of flowers from the highway. It was a haunting image.
my friend was one of the first responders on-site as she worked there. she wasn't okay for months after. I'll never forget the look in her eyes.
we all grew up on this ride as it's one of the tamer ones. absolutely tragic
"The victims sustained injuries that were incompatible with life." I'll never forget that quote from one of the responders when this happened. Such a gruesome understatement.
Yeah that is EMT talk for "turned into minced meat".
@@Sidraughen Or Chunky Salsa.
Thats the one quote I'll never forget.
Somehow that quote is more terrifying than any graphic description could have been.
People got pissed off at him for saying that. How fucking stupid. What did they want him to say? Did they want him to get into detail?
If the PARAMEDICS needed counseling, then I can only imagine just how badly mangled the bodies were. Dear lord....😧
Those poor kids, having to live with such a damning memory.😞
When the raft flipped the conveyer which was made of long wooden slats continued to move. Those caught underneath the raft were effectively ‘grated’ from head to waist. It was absolutely horrific for those who had to tend to the scene 😞
I know one was decapitated.
@@EnthetaSkater how anyone thought the lack of maintenance was ok.. and wouldn't end in disaster. .. .... ...... I'll never understand.
@@We_Are_All_Vultures Money it is the main cause of all deaths as they will cut any corners they can to save money
@@ThatRandomChannelTRC are you serious? Mangled means torn apart. Bodies can and do get torn apart. What does biology have to do with your ridiculous comment?
While I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to do so, I recommended this incident because I had yet to find a good video explaining what happened. I knew you would do an amazing job and am so not disappointed. Amazing story telling as ways 👍👍
I agree. I feel so horrible for those poor kids who lost 4 family members in this accident. :(
There’s one other TH-cam video that goes deep into the mechanicals of what happened. I wish I could remember the channel.
I think the only thing I would have added is the fact that an identical incident had already happened a few years previously - it was just lucky that it was during a test run, and no one was on board.
I went to Dreamworld a year or two before this happened. This was one of the few rides I was able to go on, because the park's disability access was so poor that, despite being allowed on all rides in Village Roadshow parks with just an armband from visitor services, there wasn't ever anyone IN visitor services in Dreamworld to verify my wheelchair using self for rides, so I got turned away from almost everything.
I do remember vividly that the seatbelt on my seat in Thunder River Rapids was faulty due to wear. The velcro wouldn't stay done up, so I had to hold myself in the raft the whole ride. I was not keen to go on it again after that. After this incident, there were A LOT of people remembering almost falling out due to the worn seat belts.
@@LevadeNZ I think in that test run they dismissed it because they had not bothered to load the rafts with weighted test dummies. So they were running light.
@@LevadeNZ It's been over two decades since I last took that ride, and even then the belts seemed quite worn. I remember thinking that actually falling out must be fairly inconsequential, hence the dodgy restraints (meaning, you're not going to die if you were to end up in the water). I'm sure many others felt the same way.
As for 'visitor services' at Dreamworld - they've always been worse than useless. I was physically assaulted (shoved hard) by a park employee for the egregious offence of using flash photography _near to,_ but _not within,_ an area where this was prohibited. Despite the seriousness of this misconduct, and several shocked witnesses to support me, visitor services wouldn't even apologise let alone make any attempt to placate me with compensatory "free tickets" or the like.
Judging from your comment, supporting customers, whether they are able bodied or not, appears to have changed very little, and be of very low priority - an annoyance at best - so maintaining an empty "support" office keeps complaints seemingly low and spares them paying for a staff member skilled enough to judge the abilities/requirements of the differently-abled.
After watching a bunch of your videos and videos by dark history, I have come to the conclusion that human beings don’t really change things until someone dies.
It's a well-known fact that safety regulations are written in blood.
unless it’s Americans and school shootings, then we pretend nothing can be done
so true. there is bit dangerous road in village/town i live, few minor accidents happened, but nothing was changed until my grandpa died in car crash on that road. after that they put speed bumps to slow down drivers and lower the amount of accidents.
@@delusionalmilkshake My condolences on the loss of your grandfather.
Always happens like that, especially in Australia. There used to be an intersection in my small town that was notorious for accidents and near misses, and it was complained about for literally 20 years, council never did anything except fill the occasional pot hole once in a blue moon, all of a sudden a two car crash happens that kills 7 people and they all go “oh shit we need to fix the road” then within a month there is a roundabout built and the council are like “look what we did! We fixed this and made it safer for you!” As if they hadn’t been ignoring requests for 2 decades. I know of so many similar stories. It’s disgusting. Nobody cares until someone dies and even then they still only care about not getting sued.
Honestly I wonder if there was even a single engineer involved in ride safety AT ALL. As you mentioned, there are dozens of very cheap common sensors that would have prevented this: jam sensors on the belt, water level sensors, auto shuttoffs if a pump fails, obstruction sensors to tell if a boat is in the way... seriously, these are common every-day sensors. any engineer would have implemented these
thats why u let a big company make a ride and not make a diy build. its super sad my condoleances to the family.
But the first step would be, what is the risk? Do we expect the conveyor to flip boats over or just shove them out of the way?
My family owns a car wash and our automatics have sensors in place both to not only prevent damage to vehicles in case of malfunction, but also to prevent damage to the equipment if problems are detected. I can't imagine the risk and the cost of not having automatic shutoffs, even though the risk of someone getting hurt is extremely small. The cost of equipment burning itself up is reason enough even for a greedy company not concerned with safety.
@@SilverMe2004 Doesn't matter. If there is even the *possibility* of the raft flipping onto the conveyor belt, that is a major safety hazard and the belt should be immediately redesigned or have shutoff sensors installed along the track.
@@mike-bk7sq Indeed!! When you know that even Europa-Park, owned by the family that also owns MACK Rides, had it's rapid river built by Intamin.
This 10 minute video did more for my understanding of what actually happened than 4 years worth of news coverage
You can read the full 279 page report from the Qld Courts here: www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/641830/10545784-final-dreamworld-draft-6-for-upload.pdf
Happy reading. Its a good. And you can understand why the news cant report on everything that was brought up. There is a lot.
The "news" goes for the quick shock and awe instead of well, reporting the news.
So to correct a few points in this video:
- According to most reports the children were thrown clear of the ride, onto the catwalk or station platform at the side
- Two people were thrown onto the conveyor, one of them a male who was trapped underwater
- Two people were trapped on the raft and sustained injuries from the conveyor
- The pump had failed and was reset twice that day instead of being properly inspected and repaired because the electrician was busy with other jobs at the park
- The junior operator was on her first day and received only 90 minutes of training. She was told about the e-stop which would have stopped the conveyor within 2 seconds "don't worry about that button, no one uses it". The senior operator was unaware of the 2nd e-stop button in the control room.
Your information about the operator is incorrect. It was not her first day, she had the ride before and was simply being retrained that day. She also wasn’t told to ignore the e-stop. If you want more information on what happened and what actually lead up to this freak accident you can read it at the link below. it’s a very long read but very interesting if you don’t have a weak stomach and are willing to sit through it all.
www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/641830/10545784-final-dreamworld-draft-6-for-upload.pdf
@@a7me3z37 thanks for sharing the link. Definitely worth the read if you can stomach it. Just really sad and reading the 'death would have been rapid' parts was both disturbing but also glad they didn't suffer for long. But regardless would have been traumatic.
A7ME 3Z she had worked on that ride before but it was her first day training to be a no.2 operator.
@@a7me3z37browsing through the autopsy reports, it seems all victims died quickly ... a very poor excuse for a silver lining, but still ....
According to the official report of this incident, based on security footage:
1) The moving equipment pushed the raft into the one in front of it which was stopped, forcing it from horizontal to vertical very quickly, with violent jerks.
2) Two of the adults then fell / were thrown from the raft into the moving equipment.
3) The other two adults, still seated at what became the bottom of the raft when it went vertical, were caught in the machinery as the raft was grabbed and partially pulled down into the moving equipment before it stopped.
4) The two children remained inside the raft unhurt and were able to climb out of it onto platforms on either side. They were not thrown out.
These poor people. I've always been a scardy cat when it comes to rides, and as a kid this here is the single ride my parents convinced me to go on during our trip to the gold coast. When I saw it on the news the irony of it being the only ride my childhood self deemed safe in 4 theme parks hit hard
Yeah, it is a bit weird to think that oftentimes the rides people feel are the most safe are actually the ones that kill people. Rollercoasters for example tend to be extremely safe, but then epcott's rotating puppet show crushed a girl trying to exit to use the bathroom
I live near this park. It's just heartbreaking. They used to be so popular, but now you drive past to see all of the big rides stopped, and you just get this sense of sadness and loss
Is the park closed down as result of this accident? Or due to coivd hysteria lockdown?
@@wasabi622 they're still open but it's definitely been hit hard by covid but I had been there multiple times after the accident and before covid hit and the line which used to almost always be so long it went further than the undercover area (which was huge) was now always pretty short. Very sad.
@@wasabi622 its still open but nobody goes. you used to drive past and always see their main attractions going, its a ghost town now. So creepy and sad
My sister used to work at dreamworld (not as a ride operator, fortunately) and I used to have annual passes regularly (at one point I think I was there every week). I honestly wouldn't go back unless they did a major overhaul of the park, and redesigned a lot of rides, but at the same time its a tricky situation because how can they afford that if they aren't getting guests.
I think the problem is that it was such a beloved ride for a very long time, and seen as "safe". If it were a roller-coaster or thrill ride, or less popular it may well have been different.
It's a similar story for Alton Towers after the smiler rollercoaster crashed. Though they seemed to be recovering on numbers before covid.
One of the true horrors was for the daughter who did not go on the ride. She was standing on a bridge overhead and witnessed the gruesome death of her family. I remember that day, the news reported that the victims "sustained injuries that are totally incompatible with life", which was pretty horrifying just imagining what had happened to them.
I'll never forget hearing that too.
What kind of injuries? The narrator doesn’t say
@@snowbunnie73 they were basically eaten by the machinery. crushed and chewed up.
@@snowbunnie73 that is true. I know this, but never heard they had to wait till the next day to retrieve them.
@@snowbunnie73 Most of these rides are pretty serious pieces of heavy, powerful, industrial engineering, not far off the sort of things you'd see in the mining industry. A conveyor like that has a huge amount of torque, it'd pull you to pieces without even trying 😔.
As an engineer I spend more time looking at the rides than actually riding them when visiting a theme park, when i see the various conveyors, electric motors, gearboxes, enormous hub drive hydraulic motors ect it never fails to amaze me what seriously heavy and powerful equipment it is.
This is THE theme park in Australia. Other states don’t really have big parks so we tend to travel to the Gold Coast where dreamworld is (along with water parks etc) for this kind of thing. There’s a lot of trust that dreamworld wouldn’t screw up like this. It’s a trusted name. Or was..
I am from Malaysia and love theme parks, I went to Gold Coast in 2005 and had the time of my life there having visited Dreamworld, Movieworld and Seaworld. My favourite was Dreamworld and had actually been on this ride. Just appalling to know that such a big park like that would skimp on safety features.
Shocking that a place we all trust to be of the highest safety standard was only an illusion.
That was my favourite ride when i was younger
What other states are in Australia?? I thought it was just 1 big land 😩😂
@@AriessunvirgomoonlightLibraise Lol, South Au, West Au, New South Whales, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland.
As an Australian, I remember hearing about this on the news and being sickened by the goriness of the deaths and feeling deeply sickened for days following. This incident has made me think twice about going on any theme park ride at all ever again, because we just can't know for sure that safety procedures are being followed.
well ever since that horrific incident, dreamworld is now much safer and maintained properly and rides tested before hours and after hours.
I always got a really bad feeling about dream world and would refuse to go even when we had the theme passes, I have a really deep fear of rides to the point I don’t even ride roller coasters. When this happened I live very close by and I had to go there shortly after for a school excursion the ride was still closed. I also felt sickened hearing the details of what happened, I felt this sense of dread the entire time I was there, barely anyone was there I guess because it was so recent. I tried to back out because I didn’t feel safe going and I was told I’d fail my class if I didn’t go, it was a physics class where we used the rides torque and shit I don’t really remember, I just remember how uncomfortable I was the entire time and walking passed the closed ride I just felt so bad for everyone involved.
Same. I live on the gc and had only recently been to the park and avoided that ride because it looked old and dilapidated. What Australians and locals heard was much more horrific than what the rest of the world was told. Goldcoast is a small city really, so we heard the worst of it on the day and then the days after. No one that witnesses or that had to be apart of recovery came out the same. It was worse than any of our worst nightmares. I still feel sick to my stomach about what happened. 😢💔
if it helps to hear ill say that this ride specifically was a HUGE outlier compared to 99.99% of all rides out there and even if you're skeptical you have the ability to research the safety prodecures and regulations of every ride out there and basically all of them will be extremely safe. ardent is just an evil terrible awful company that the government should have never allowed to exist
I've always had this fear, especially when I was a kid, that I'd be riding on an escalator and it would suddenly fall through and I would get caught in and ground up in the gears. I don't know where I got the idea from but this has actually happened, sadly. This story is like a bigger version of that, and it really creeped me out. It's horrific how those people died, and it doesn't sound like it was particularly fast either. And the poor kids who survived but lost their family members....jeez.
In America nobody has ever been ground up in the gears of a stair escalator but it has happened a few times in China. The floor plate at the end came loose and a person got completely sucked into the machinery.
th-cam.com/video/gz4R-Xhj9Vc/w-d-xo.html
@@Novusod Jesus Christ, that's such a gruesome way to die. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
As a kid my mom had me terrified of escalaters thinking my shoelace would get stuck in it I would jump over when it came to the end😂
Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don’t hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent - I don’t care which one - but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator.
not wanna make people more anxious ....but wasn't there a story about that muslim lady whose scarf got stuck at the escalator?!! rest in peace...
Nothing makes me more furious than needless death. This was preventable. I- just can't fathom being so careless and greedy. You cannot justify this park's blatant disregard for human life. Innocent human life.
When I heard that they custom-designed the ride themselves all the warning bells started ringing.
Just to clarify something... are we talking designed as in drawing what they wanted it to look like, or designed as in actually building it?
Intamin are common to have custom design in their lineup of ride.
Like Top Thrill Dragster/Kingda Ka and Chinese Dueling Dragon is pretty much custom design roller-coaster from Intamin
Even Hagrid Motorbike is the only one of kind. Family coaster with 7 Launches, on-ride switched track, dropped track, and custom train
It worked fine for many years but the big problem came when they modified the original conveyer belt design after some major maintenance when it was around 20 years old. Intamin straight up told them it's not Intamin's fault after seeing the modifications. The unmodified Intamin design has no such problems.
The worst part of this incident is that the survivors are children who watched their parents and siblings die very traumatic deaths. This by itself is horrible! I cannot imagine growing up having seen that. Its hard enough if your an adult. Those two kids… i hope they each have loved ones that have helped them through this.
So like the Vietnam War?
@@chrisx5127 like any tragedy
I just realized that I started coming to this channel to take a break from the current social and political landscape. Im not sure what that says that I find all of these stories less depressing.
Pretty amazing considering Trump has started no new wars and signed many new peace deals, but the power of the leftist media has disturbed the mental state of the public to force them to hate Trump.
Also a good one for disaster docu: th-cam.com/channels/b0MyY46T9ZYOzDHkYnIoXg.html
@@RepublicConstitution oh man, shut up you are not helping.
@@spinosaurusstriker No new wars. You do understand how important that is, right? Nah, you all are brainwashed by TV.
@@RepublicConstitution You assume they are American. Besides, you can be a fan of Trump and still need a break from it all. Him not starting a war doesnt mean other things aren't depressing. The rift in American culture is sad to me and the lockdowns.
I’m a local and every time I drive past I can see it’s never been as busy as it was before that day. The car park is never full anymore, not even close.
Can't blame people for steering clear. It takes a long time to build a good name, but it can be shattered in SECONDS with something like this.
Good. they dont even deserve the money from people going. The victims will never be compensated properly.
I don't wanna go there even if I'm at gunpoint
yea people who go there knowing this should be extremely ashamed of themselves.
@@yea0000 why? What do they have to do with it?
I remember this day. Australia actually stood still for what seemed like a week. Everyone was just in utter shock. It seemed like everything went slower. It was so horrible to imagine, and it’s still hard to think about. I can’t imagine what the families and friends of the victims must be going through still.
Just a terrible tragedy
I am Australian and I remember this. I remember the Ambulance services describing the injuries as "injuries not compatible with life" and people complained. They thought the thermology was cold. It just a easier and professional way to describe extreme trauma resulting in death. If you do not know what it means well lets say we use the term in the railways when a person has gone under a speeding train. Instead of saying the person is in multiple bits you just say "injuries not compatible with life". That sounds better over the radio then saying "there bits of head over there, the some toros there and a leg is there. I am not sure what that bit is"
This place was one of my most fond memories when I visited Australia as a child. I remember riding this ride and have so many photos, it is really chilling to think that the same ride I sat on and loved back then to would bring about so much tragedy and pain in the years to come. Its like being classmates with a serial killer and seeing him on tv years later
That’s a really good analogy!
I grew up not far from there and went to dreamworld heaps. I went on that ride several times, and ive been trying to figure out the feeling with knowing the whole time it was practically a death trap - this is exactly it. Spot on.
This guy I went to university with just killed his whole family. I still think this accident is much more disturbing
I fully get that feeling. One of my favorite rides at our local amusement park killed a kid just last summer (July 3, 2021). The safety inspector had just signed a report the day prior that found 11 safety violations, but didn't have the authority to close the ride or issue fines. After the kid died, further investigations found 6 more safety violations - including improper maintenance, unlicensed repairs with incorrect parts, staff that hadn't been properly trained, etc... I loved that place as a kid. We went every year.
Ofc, after I was an adult and went back there with a season pass (one of the first things I really splurged on after getting a job), I ran into ppl I knew from school working there. That's when I learned that even though national minimum wage (which is what our state uses) had been raised to $7.25, they were getting paid a little over $5 an hour. I was shocked to learn that minimum wage doesn't apply to seasonal employees - which was almost all of the ppl that worked at the park except some maintenance ppl and management.
Unsurprisingly, the family that owned the park decided to sell to an international company in December of 2021. Guess they hoped that would let them wash their hands of it (not that it will).
We also visited this park during our vacation in Australia and rode this ride with my siblings and father. Imagine mu surprise when we found out years later that this happened.
Just grateful that the children were able to survive, this freak accident is tragic to say the least.
Firstly - damn you’re here too?! Secondly - its great that they survived but seeing people die infront you will traumatize to for the rest of your life
Freak Accident? This was not freak accident, this was an incident waiting to happen with crap like this going on, and then it did. Too bad the CEO and other Big-Wigs were not in the raft in place of the parents.
@@christopherjunkins Exactly!
You're literally everywhere 😂 I just saw the first reply too lol also yes
It isn’t a freak accident when negligence was involved.
I just want to say, God bless all emergency personnel out there. The things you guys do is absolutely outstanding and often unbelievable. I once had the endeavor to become an EMT before I developed chronic pain and it was no longer a feasible option for me. But I've seen what it takes -- the long hours and hard work involved, the danger from reckless and mistaken druggies and criminals, the sights you see that you can never forget, the environments you have to enter, all of those extreme factors that would drive the layman to depression, insanity, or worse. Emergency services of all kind carry a valor unlike other professions but especially those who put their lives on the line for mediocre wages specifically to heal and treat others. My hat is off to you lads and lasses, and my utmost respect and love is reserved for you. I hope you know that you are not unappreciated.
@Account NumberEight reddit moment
@Account NumberEight is that your only takeaway from this entire comment? Jesus christ.. oops, hope that name didnt offend you just now.
I am the boyfriend of a family member of the victims, it's been incredibly difficult for the family and there's been a few other unrelated deaths that have compounded the legal issues because it means disputed claims to life insurance and belongings
My condolences to the family. So sad and awful.🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻❤️
I’m so sorry. 😞 Sending love. I know it’s not much, but us locals took the news as if it were our own family. It should never have happened. 💔🙏
Imagine the poor ride operator. A 19 year old girl. Who hasnt been shown where the stop button is. And just having to call and wait for help whilst the meat mincing is happening.
She was shown the stop button but not told what events should trigger her use of it and wasn't told to man that post all the time. She wasn't at the button when the raft started to flip so couldn't hit it, which would have resulted in no loss of life.
@@ReturnOfTheJ.D. I saw someone else say that she was told NOT to hit the stop button. I don't know if that's true, but I'd believe it in a heartbeat.
@@ReturnOfTheJ.D. how did the raft star tto flip, was the raft just going to the end of the ride and they were about to get off or did the flip happen in the middle of the ride. Can you describe what happened and how it happened cuz im still confused how a raft caused another to flip
@@frostedcookiedough4343 The raft in front of the one that flipped was stuck due to low water levels because of the malfunctioning water pump in that area. These rafts weight a tonne each, literally. The raft with six people on it (4 of whom later died) was being pushed into it by the conveyor belt, and water was building up underneath that raft. It mounted the other raft, or went over the top of it and then the water pressure from behind it (water being dumped into that area and maybe also the conveyor belt pushing it forward) forced the back of that raft forward such that it became perpendicular or vertical in relation to the other raft, upon which the two children jumped out quickly to their respective sides (saving their lives) and the four adults fell out of the raft. Two were trapped under the raft, suffocating to death as they were unable to move the heavy weight that was now upside down, and the other two adults were chomped and mashed up by the conveyor belt and its machinery, none of which had slats to stop them falling into it. It all depended where you were on the raft as it flipped over. The female who survived (32) took some time to bleed out after being taken out of the conveyor belt machinery, and was alive and conscious, moaning in agony, most of that time, according to witnesses who posted what they saw online.
@@frostedcookiedough4343 They weren't able to get off the ride at the time it flipped without jumping into the water or onto a small section of decking and the two children were closest to those points so they did that.
Please do the 1973 Isle of Man Summerland disaster Mr Horror. Long forgotten, many lives lost. Would make a fascinating addition to your superb video inventory.
Just looked it up. Oh my god, how horrible. :(
Yes please cover! My dad, grandmother and great grandmother were survivors. Even to this day my dad can't bring himself to talk about it so I don't even know the exact details of their experience; apart from that I think he had to climb up some kind of wall and pull the others up to escape. My grandmother had to have skin grapths for her wrists/hands after the burns she recieved. It makes me feel emotional to think how easily they could have been lost and how lucky they were when others weren't.
There's a real good in-depth and fascinating book written by someone from Birmingham University.
Chapter 1 is at www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-les/gees/staff/fire-disaster-c1.pdf
To get subsequent chapters you need to edit the url to c2, c3 etc.
Great suggestion
I second this. I haven't heard about this tragedy before and I would love to hear more about it.
I remember when this happened. The way some of the blankets are positioned in the aerial shot tells you all you really need to know about how horrific the accident must have been. The children are going to live with this memory forever, absolutely tragic.
When I heard that two kids survived I slapped my hand over my mouth so hard, they saw their family members die a horrific death and heard their screams, I am going to cry.
two victims fell from their seats while the other two were actually trapped in their seats under the gears and axel of the ride. one of them floated out because he was not wearing his seatbelt, but the woman next to him was wearing her seatbelt and was stuck in the machine.
the kids only survived because they were light enough to keep the velcro seatbelt intact. it was also found that one adult may have been saved had the seatbelt been a lap buckle rather than the velcro.
I'm trying very hard to not imagine what it was like when it takes one day to retrieve the bodies and then some of the paramedics needed counseling.
They got mashed / chopped to bits by the conveyor. Would have been body parts ripped off everywhere.
@@staples4335 actually they didn’t lose any parts although apparently one guy almost lost his head
@@lokiwiseyt8608 source?
@@lokiwiseyt8608
While it's still terrible what happened to them, it lowers my anxiety by giving me a less gory image in my head on how this whole thing transpired, so I thank you for that document.
@@staples4335 the conveyer kept going never stopped. The weight of the raft kept them pinned to the conveyer. They were cheese grated to oblivion.
I went on this ride in 2010 with my children and I remember feeling really unsafe on it. It was just such a clunky ride. I thought then that there was something wrong with it. When this accident happened it gave me the chills because of my own memories from it in 2010 and sadly, it didn't surprise me.
yeah, it always made that grating, rattling noise as you moved up and down it. i always felt nervous being on that part when i was younger
Imagine how many people have noticed that but the tragedy needed to happen for something to change...
This happened in the 80s what are you talking about?
@@youwish2783 what it was 2016 bro
Agree. I last went on in 2012 and the clunky feeling was unnerving. Compared to the log ride which I felt fine on
That memorial garden actually turned out to be a new roller coaster. No memorial ever built and they still have not payed the settlement. Was all PR BS from them until the story died down
The new roller coaster is pretty sick though
I think you'll find there is a memorial garden, just past the giant drop before the wildlife area
@@spannaspinna its decent but it's a direct carbon copy of blue fire at europa park cuz they're cheapskates
Me and my family were on this ride exactly 2 hours earlier that day and left once this event happened. It scared my mother and myself shitless and i remember her crying out of fear and sadness from what happened.
This was so shocking when it happened. I was in the US at the time working at Disney and I remember the day after this happened every single water ride on property was closed and drained for maintenance... I don't know if it was a coincidence but it definitely spooked me.
They fiddled with this ride so that it had gaps where things could be yanked under. I doubt Disney is that stupid. Tho they had a few deaths and cover-ups. See the cruise ship vanishings...
Nowadays, Disney seems extremely thorough in regards to their safety protocols. Like, if computer sensors detect anything off or weird, a ride will shut down automatically. To be honest, I’d much rather have a ride that stops because of minor things than a ride where the “stop” button is apparently too hard to find.
I would think they did that intentionally rather than coincidence. Seeing a catastrophic failure like this in a previously safe park would probably make you question the workings of your own rides and safety mechanisms
Damn, I remember this being on the news here. They never said the park guests were crushed by a conveyor belt. Just that they had drowned. I guess that part was too morbid for local news to want to broadcast.
They clearly must have mentioned it because one EMT was pilloried in the media over the fact he used the term "injuries incompatible with life" when describing victims. You don't get torn apart by drowning.
@@krashd "Injuries incompatible with life" is such a vague description though, that could literally mean anything, I mean not getting enough oxygen is an injury that isn't compatible with life.
@@TheSonic1685 What it means though is a polite way of saying "I know for a fact the person was dead". In most first world countries first responders are not allowed to pronounce death because it would open up a myriad of legalities. Only a trained doctor can ever say "This person is dead" as they are qualified to do so, this means that any EMT or paramedic or first aider on the scene must carry out CPR continuously on a person until a doctor relieves them.
Now how does someone like that get out of performing CPR on a decapitated head or a body that has lost all of it's intestines? They can declare a witness and then state "the victim had injuries incompatible with life". Then they and the witness will have statements taken and if their statements later match up with the autopsy then they can be excused for not carrying out CPR.
It's all about who can sue who these days..
I don't know where "here" is for you, but I remember hearing this story. I didn't have tv by 2016, so it was online news, but same thing was said: That they died from drowning. This is literally my first time hearing that they were ripped to shreds after dropping onto the belt or through the space into "the mechanics". Nor did I know that 2 kids survived, and that they were related to people who were shredded. NOR did I hear that one of the kids was a 12 yr old who begged for "one more ride" before leaving the park that day. This story just went to a whole new level compared to what US news wussies ever mentioned - that I saw.
@@Anna_Stetik News networks are usually vying with one another to see who can release the story first and so the first reports are almost always wrong. Since this involved deaths on a water ride the first reports to reach journalists would be "four dead on water ride" and then whatever questions they would be able to ask before the cops push them away would likely be answered by "I didn't see much but I do know all four ended up in the water".
So it first appears on the evening news as drownings.
This happens with about 90% of news stories, you only find out much later that the "husband murdered by an axe-wielding home intruder" really died by falling down the stairs and landing on his own gardening tool.
I remember this ride, rode it plenty of times. Initially I found it really fun. But as I got older, and the more times I concluded the ride on that conveyor, the more uneasy I felt. Eventually I got such a bad feeling, I refused to even ride it. Last I rode was a month before this tragedy.
Gut feelings can sometimes pay off.
Always trust your gut!!
Imagine dying at a place named Dreamworld. It sounds like a very disturbing matter. I'm glad you are being respectful to the deceased.