Investigators and detectives from the Kansas City Police Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and the Kansas attorney generals office also arrived at Schlitterbahn. He posted a $500,000 bond and surrendered his passport. According to park rules, a Verrckt rider had to be at least 54 inches (4 feet 6 inches) tall. Im a water showman. Parents relive horror after son, 10, was decapitated on water slide, Caleb Schwab, 10, was decapitated on a water slide in Kansas five years ago, This 168-foot tall slide at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark was billed as the world's tallest, The view from the top of the terrifying ride, Gatecrashers storm inflatable water park by jumping in for free during heatwave, Boy, 8, dies after drowning in swimming pool in front of family and sunbathers. I listened to the wind rustling through the cedar, oak, and cypress trees, and then I noticed Amber staring at me. But there is nothing in the law that requires the inspector to have any particular certifications. Before Jeffs arraignment, his 39-year-old daughter, Amber, from his first marriage, raced to a Walmart and purchased a suit for her father to wear. It was a Sunday afternoon, August 7, 2016, the temperature a pleasant 78 degrees, as ten-year-old Caleb Schwab began the 264-step climb to the top of Verrckt, the world's tallest waterslide,. Verruckt is one of the water parks main attractions. But nobody bothered to tell me something was wrong with it., As for the outside engineering firms finding that a raft with three passengers weighing between 400 and 550 pounds could go airborne, Jeff said he thought it relied on outdated information. So he invented what he described as a water brake, a dip at the end of the slide that slowed the guests down. When the case goes to trial, which isnt likely to happen for at least another year, Jeffs and Schooleys attorneys might use that very argument: that the employees who operated Verrckt made mistakes, such as ignoring maintenance problems, and that Henry and Schooley knew nothing about it. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. When he wasnt working on Schlitterbahn rides, Jeff exported his inventions around the world. Police confirmed to TIME on Tuesday that the boy was decapitated in the accident. Aug 23, 2016 AP Three weeks after Caleb Schwab, the 10-year-old son of a Kansas lawmaker, was decapitated while riding Verrckt, the world's tallest waterslide, experts are still trying to. Her friend Jess Sanford added: "I only saw Caleb slide down the last half of the slide, and then I saw the blood. This video is meant as a respectful look back documenting what happened.Caleb Scwab was in. That boat flew. After high school, Jeff opened a video arcade bar in San Marcos that he called the Too Bitter Bar, the walls of which contained painted murals of moons, watermelons, lips, and bananas. I was hired as an admissions cashiertaking payment and . Was the wind a factor? Caleb Thomas Schwab, the son of State Representative Scott Schwab and his wife, Michele, of Olathe, died of a fatal neck injury, police said Monday. We also may change the frequency you receive our emails from us in order to keep you up to date and give you the best relevant information possible. At a height of 168 feet 7 inches (51.38 m), Verrckt became the world's tallest water slide when it opened on July 10, 2014, surpassing Kilimanjaro at Aldeia das guas Park Resort . Its sort of beautiful, isnt it? she said. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. There was no age restrictiononly the height requirementso kids joined the line. Chip Gaines Bought Larry McMurtrys Historic Texas Bookstore. And he saw before anyone else what we could do in New Braunfels.. Where to park for free at Clearwater Beach? Over two years after 10-year-old Caleb Schwab lost his life on the tallest waterslide in the world, the amusement park industry has yet to fully reckon with the tragedy. Certified by the Guinness World Records as the worlds tallest, the slide is no stranger to controversy. (Bob died in October 2016, after a long illness, and Billye died in her sleep last year.) In a black notebook, he constantly wrote down ideas for new rides he wanted to build. "She suffered head and neck injuries . I want to be the first at the bar to buy a drink, and I want to be the first to meet a pretty girl, and I want to be the first at everything. That day, Schlitterbahn was offering free admission to Kansas elected officials and their families, along with a buffet lunch, and the Schwabs, who lived in the town of Olathe, southwest of Kansas City, were thrilled. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. aftermath image of Caleb's death out of her head. (By this time, Bob had handed off the company to his three children, giving each of them a third of the voting shares.) I think they need to fix the jostling around like your neck gets pretty (shaken)around like really good and you hit your head a lot, a witness said. Caleb was 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 72 pounds. The sounds of the park belowlaughter and shoutingwere nothing more than a faint murmur. The late Caleb Schwab, 10 (2nd Right), is pictured with his brothers, father, Republican Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab, and mother, Michele. KANSAS CITY, Kan. As more information comes out about what happened to cause 10-year-old Caleb Schwab's tragic death, the concern over amusement park safety grows. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission only has jurisdiction over traveling amusement parks, like pop-up carnivals. A Right-wing Cabal Took Over Odessas Municipal Government. "A lot of our math was based on rollercoasters at first, and that didn't translate to a water slide like this. This time, it worked perfectly. But it didn't, so I worked there. Eyewitness Melanie Gocke had told CNN : "I heard the noise, and I looked over immediately, and I saw his broken neck and him sliding down the slide leaving a blood trail.". Caleb's family received nearly $20 million . She was born in 1940 and died in 1954. The two men were approached by producers from the Travel Channel who said they were looking for an episode to lead off the new season of their popular TV series, This was news to everyone, even at Schlitterbahn. The Lagoon at the original Schlitterbahn, in New Braunfels, in 1991. Jeff never made any secret of how he built his rides. They next built a ninety-foot-tall model of Verrckt (about half its eventual size), putting the initial drop at a 60-degree vertical angle, which they believed was steep enough for the riders to feel as if they were falling but was still gradual enough for the rafts to maintain solid contact with the chute. He sold his technology for slides and river systems to the Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas and to the Palm in Dubai. Within a few seconds, the raft reached the bottom of the hill and swooped up the second, 55-foot hill. It was quiet. Verrckt ( German meaning "crazy" or "insane", listen) was a water slide located at the Schlitterbahn Kansas City water park in Kansas City, Kansas, United States. Some experts believe that his death was because of the uneven distribution of weight. Caleb was killed when his raft became airborne over the slide's 50-foot hump and collided with a metal bar supporting the safety net. Well, man, if I dont ever see you again, its been fun, he said to Schooley, trying to be lighthearted. (A single rider, lying on his back, shot straight down the slide, slowed during the long water brake, and finally came to a stop in a runout pool.) A humid breeze presses down on the dead summer grass. Jos R. Ralat is Texas Monthlys taco editor, writing about tacos and Mexican food. As a boy, he was the classic river rat, a Huck Finn in cutoff shorts who spent almost all his free time on the Comal. Long Waits, Short Appointments, Huge Bills. Tell Jeff were going to let him graduate so that he no longer has to come back to school.. Police have revealed that 10-year-old Caleb Schwab - who was involved in a fatal accident at Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City on Sunday - died of a "neck injury," PEOPLE confirms.. He sketched out his plan for Verrckt: a one-of-a-kind slide that would not only send riders almost straight down a staggeringly tall hill but also shoot them up and over a second imposing hill, giving people multiple heart-stopping thrills. ET A few weeks ago, 10-year-old Caleb Schwab died after riding on a water slide at Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas. He was smart, and he joined the debate team, but he didnt turn in his homework and refused to take tests, telling his teachers that tests were a waste of time. No one had ever done anything like this.". All Rights Reserved. Kansas State Representative Scott Schwab 's son, Caleb who died at age 10 on Sunday, August 7, in a waterslide accident at Kansas City's Schlitterbahn Water Park was decapitated, police. He added, Neither did Henry Ford, and he built the car., Jeff returned to Texas and stayed out of public view, splitting his time between a condo he owns in South Padre and a home he owns outside New Braunfels on a remote piece of property a short walk away from the grave sites of his mother and father. (Under the headline The making of Schlitterbahns Verrckt water slide: Too much, too fast? a Kansas City Star article concluded that the ultimate safety of [Verrckt] mostly began and ended with those inspired to build it.) The reporters quoted former Verrckt riders who said their shoulder straps had busted loose or that their rafts had caught air. He never got a conventional education beyond high school and never formally studied physics or engineering. "His friend was screaming for help and I think that's when staff members and medics and stuff started running.". A source familiar with the investigation into the boy's death told the Associated Press that Caleb was decapitated. An engineering firm hired to inspect the ride right before its opening also issued a damning report that said it "guaranteed that rafts would occasionally go airborne in a manner that could severely injure or kill the occupants.. Get email updates with the day's biggest stories. I am appalled anyone would write such details with pictures (including arrows!!) Many of us, and our children and grandchildren, have ridden the ride with complete confidence as to its safety . For instance, eleven Schlitterbahn customers said they had been injured on Verrckt between August 31, 2014, and August 5, 2016 (two days before Calebs death). A detective interviewed 29-year-old Tyler Miles, who had been working at the park since 2013 and had advanced from construction worker to lifeguard to director of operations, responsible for all aspects of the parks day-to-day ride operations. They would need to determine what the minimum and maximum weights of the passengers in each raft should be, and they would need to find out what gravitational and centrifugal forces those passengers would be able to sustain. Since then, several witnesses have recalled the tragedy, but now the boy's father is breaking his silence. http://wx.wfla.com/oembed/email/noon_signup.html. There is no single federal agency responsible for enforcing rules and regulations at Schlitterbahn, which is monitored by the states Department of Labor. Caleb Schwab Death: Source Reveals Horrific Details of Boy's Water Slide Accident By Associated Press Nationwide PUBLISHED 4:32 PM ET Aug. 10, 2016 KANSAS CITY, Kan. A 10-year-old boy was decapitated as he rode a 168-foot tall waterslide at a water park in Kansas, a person familiar with the investigation said Wednesday. Caleb Schwab, the son of a Kansas state . This is the best life I could ever imagine., Jeff was so busy with his own projects that he barely had time to go to New Braunfels High School, and when he did, he often showed up for class barefoot. (At that point, there were fewer than a half dozen water parks around the U.S.) Jeff quickly got on the phone to tell Bob and Billye all about it. The State of Kansas also agreed to throw in an estimated $200 million in sales tax revenue bonds. They asked Jeff if he had any projects in the works. In five other incidents, riders claimed their rafts went airborne over the crest of the second hill and that they suffered head, neck, and back injuries when their rafts slammed back down onto the chute. There are members of my family who would like to commit me to a facility because Im suffering from depression. If the total weight of the three riders was between 400 and 550 pounds, they were sent up the stairs. The slide is 168-feet tall and has 264. But Jeff, the middle child, wasnt interested at all in a formal education. Police launched an investigation. His daughter Amber did meet me. Texas law, for instance, says that a park must obtain a $1 million liability policy for each of its rides and must have all rides inspected once a year by an inspector hired by the insurance company. The speed slide its name means "insane" in German and it is certified as. He asked the Henrys to build a Schlitterbahn water park in Wyandotte County, Kansas, which covers the western half of metro Kansas City. And now, the Verrckt water slide at the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas, is the site of a horrible accident, in which 10-year-old Caleb Schwab died Sunday. As he walked out of the courthouse, his face ashen, a reporter asked if he had any training in engineering or physics. Miles, then the operations director, hid or destroyed documents detailing injuries sustained by riders . A 10-YEAR-old boy was decapitated while riding a water slide in front of his horrified mom and brother in one of the US' worst theme park tragedies. But with cameras still rolling, more sandbag-laden rafts continued to fly into the air. The real Jeff Henry was not indicted. Passengers board a three-person raft and experience a 17-story drop before being blasted back up a second massive hill to drop down another 50ft. As investigators continue to look for answers, chilling new video has emerged detailing the dangers of the worlds tallest waterslide. He said he wanted to raise their three children in a small town, just as he had been raised. For nearly a decade, Jeff and Schooley had been working on what they called a cannon nozzle: a highly pressurized water nozzle, much more advanced than the ones used in the Dragon Blaster and Master Blaster, that would propel riders up higher hills. (Schlitterbahn continues to manage the park. (The same netting system had been placed on Schlitterbahns Master Blaster rides.) He said that if he was demanding and impatient, it was because he was consumed with making Schlitterbahn the best water park in the world. Three riders inside a rubber raft would plummet down a nearly vertical seventeen-story drop at speeds reaching up to 68 miles per hour. Witness Kelsey Friedrichsen said she was about to ride the waterslide when she saw emergency responders below covering the boy and attending to the two injured. Read more about other injuries at Schlitterbahn in Kansas here. He later added another water coaster, the Master Blaster, that was six stories tall and filled with thrilling hairpin turns. At the top of the platform, they were weighed again and placed in a raft. Visitors loved the fact that they could park for free and bring their own food and drinks to the picnic areas. She said she witnessed what she thought to be the boy's crumpled shorts or bathing suit at the bottom of the 168-foot . When they reached the runout pool, the three men in the raft shouted and pumped their fists in the air. In October 2012, Jeff was at an amusement park industry trade show with his chief collaborator, John Schooley, a soft-spoken, silver-haired former yacht builder who had constructed slides at water parks in Asia before coming to New Braunfels to work for Jeff in 1998. Due to the uneven weight distribution, their raft went airborne which impacted the . "I looked over and saw his broken neck and him sliding down the slide leaving a blood trail," a witness aid.. They walked up the stairs to try the ride again. To make matters worse, the grand jury charged, operations director Miles haddeliberately concealed evidence about Verrckts dangers, going so far as to give a police detective false information. To: sandra@sandrarose.com. A local TV station interviewed a former park lifeguard who said Verrckt had terrified him and his coworkers.We had to ride it three times before we actually opened the park every day, Nathan Campbell said. And the lawyers could argue that the two men were not criminally negligent. Scott and Michelle Schwab's son Caleb, 10, died on Aug. 7, 2016, after something went wrong when the child rode on the park's 168-foot-tall Verruckt (German for "insane") water slide. No one seemed to know, not even Jeff. The safety harnesses are also raising questions. Jeff surveys his most extreme creation, Verrckt, shortly before it opens in 2014. The child was riding on the Verruckt water slide when he died. (After he had created the 135-foot Insano, a Brazilian company built a body slide that was just under 164 feet.) Although Jeff and Schooley said they used engineers and architects to help them design Verrckt, they also continued to depend on traditional trial and error. . City Employees Are Heading for the Exits. Even those weren't enough to save 10-year-old Caleb Schwab, who was decapitated. (Besides the felony conviction in 1994, he was convicted in 2007 on a misdemeanor charge of possession.) Republican lawmaker Scott Schwab's son Caleb died on the Verruckt attraction at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. (One rider reported that her head had slammed into the headrest and she sustained a concussion when her raft entered the runout pool at a high speed.) He stepped into the front of the raft, and an employee secured him to his seat with a Velcro belt and a shoulder strap. Galveston's Schlitterbahn does not have the slide Schwab was killed on,. It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes . You go back, you fix it, you make it work, you keep it safe, he said. ), On June 16 of this year, after Id attempted to contact Jeff a half dozen times through his legal team and his family, he called me at 1:26 in the morning. I could die going down this ride., Jeff told me later that he was making such statements only at the behest of the TV producers. Today is the fifth anniversary of the traumatic death. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. He also kept working for his father. These were Disneylike numbers. When Caleb reached the top of the platform, he could see the sprawl of Kansas City, including the downtown skyline, some sixteen miles away. Some of his baseball teammates sat in the front row, wearing their jerseys. It emerged that the opening of the 17-storey water wide was pushed twice because test rides showed rafts flying from the huge ride. Magazines, Digital During his senior year, the school superintendent went to his father and said, Bob, I have to be honest. For what is your life? Courtesy of Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts. Sometimes I cant get out of bed for four days., He had decided to talk to me, he said, so that people would understand he had done nothing wrong. Caleb Schwab, the son of a state lawmaker, sustained a fatal neck injury at around 2:30 p.m. while riding the 168-foot-tall Verruckt (meaning insane in German) water slide, the Associated Press reports. Caleb Schwab died in front of his family while riding a 168ft-high water . Caleb Thomas Schwab, the son of Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab, was killed Sunday while riding "Verruckt" at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City. Mimi Swartz is a staff writer based in Houston. EPR Properties, the real estate investment trust in Kansas City that loaned Schlitterbahn $174 million for its Kansas park, has warned its investors that the criminal indictments could hurt Schlitterbahns chances of repaying its loan, which might force EPR to foreclose on the park, along with the parks in New Braunfels and South Padre Island, which had been put up as collateral for the loan.
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