elemist

I think this is probably the crux of the issue. It's about foreseeable risk and managing those risks. Like you say on a roller coaster the rule is hold on at all times, but of course people never do this and regularly throw their arms up in the air. Manufacturers and parks know this, and thus ensure to plan accordingly to ensure there's sufficient clearance. I would expect the same thing would have been done on this ride - it would be anticipated that people will uncross their legs for a variety of reasons, and the ride would be designed with that in mind. TBH emotions aside - and it does seem like the situation is being blown out of proportion a bit - it sounds like just a freak accident that occurred. Likely no negligence on either side, but i assume there would be a small payout to the family for pain and suffering. It is - but on the same token, as a medical professional or even just as a mother, if your not happy with a first aid response or as is alleged it took too long then you take action yourself.. I can give you a good example - i was at Crown Casino in Perth. They have their own roaming first aid teams of what i assume are basically paramedics. Someone was choking - we called 000 for an ambulance. The staff at the restaurant called their internal teams, and then for an ambulance as backup as well. Luckily an off shift doctor happened to be there, and was able to render assistance to the person before the first aid team arrived to take over. The ambulance showed up just a few minutes after the first aid team did.

It's like anything really - do it enough times and it becomes less scary

2013 - Six Flags Texas - New Texas Giant - 52 Year old fell to her death. Ride still operating today.. 2004 - Oakwood Theme Park - Hydro - 16 Year old fell to her death. Ride reopened and operated until 2011, when it was renamed to Drenched, and still appears to be operating today. How about something similar - 1999 again Six Flags Texas - Roaring River Rapids. Raft flipped and ten injured, one drowned. Still appears to be operating today. I totally agree death is worse than injury. But purely from a PR point of view, i'm not sure it is.

In a legal sense - yes it totally matters. From a public perception thing.. i don't think it does so much. The public cares that someone died or was injured, and that someone screwed up and was held accountable. The only reason the ride got demolished was it wasn't financially viable to repair or upgrade to current standards. Due to its age, and the way it was developed and installed it would have cost a fortune to upgrade, so more cost effective to scrap. Take the Green Lantern accident for example - how close did that come to being a fatality? Do you think the general public even realises? Does it stop anyone riding it now? Think how many people ride the Smiler every day at Alton Towers? In some ways you could argue permanent injuries like what was suffered on that, are worse from a public opinion aspect than a death. When there's a death, there's some sadness, but the persons no longer around to make a fuss. When people lost limbs, but lived, everything they do becomes a news story.

Ultimately - does that matter though? I mean if it was fatal it still clearly had issues. What's to say there's not more?

Don't disagree with the need for more family water rides. More that there's other types of family water rides that are not of the rapids varieties that could be built. Money can control the spin on it, and i'm sure for the most part it would be a few stories in the first week when it was announced, and for a couple of weeks when it opened before it went away. The thing is why would a park do it to themselves though - there's just no need. It's not like its something essential that they just have to have to succeed, or that there's no other ride options available. Honestly they probably could have fixed up the issues with the ride and kept it operating if it was financially viable to do so. There would have been a few weeks of stories and then people will forget. Sure some people will probably not ride it, but they won't avoid the park because of it. There's been plenty of roller coasters that have caused deaths or injuries that reopened.

I don't think we'll see one for 15+ years at least if ever for a couple of reasons 1) There's just no need. Lots of other slides and water type rides that the parks can go with. 2) Any new rapids ride will be compared to TRRR - whether its today, tomorrow or 10 years from now. The headline won't be new ride launched. It will be park builds new murder ride or new ride just like the one that killed 4 at Dreamworld. There's always new designs and concepts being created. What i imagine will happen is someone will come up with something similar but different enough not to immediately draw a comparison. Might be a rapids style ride, but with a totally different type of craft and loading/unloading system.

Well don't you just sound like a shit human being. Just remember this comment when your dying from pneumonia.. sadly unlike you, the poor medical staff working around the clock do give a shit and will hopefully save your life, or maybe they'll just look at they're watches and decide they shouldn't have to work overtime just to cater to your need to not die.. Back on topic We're still in the early stages of this - but i'm expecting it's going to get real bad, real quick. That is after all exactly how pandemics work - one person infects two people, then those two infect two others each, and so on. The current infection rate is doubling every 3 days at present, that's likely to speed up as it spreads. In the next 2 weeks they're anticipating up to 25 thousand people infected. The really scary thing is the testing kits are so scarce at present that there's likely many many other people already infected who can't be tested. I expect to see schools closing at the end of the week, and the beginning of a mandatory curfew / work from home period maybe mid to late next week. We seem to be heading in the direction of Italy at present with lots of people sticking their heads in the sand saying it's just the flu and lets carry on with normal life. These are the people spreading this virus far and wide without consideration to the other people they're interacting with.

Thanks for the update and info - sounds like they got somewhat lucky and there wasn't too much damage.

Is the actual park flooded or is it just the car park?

Universal Studios Hollywood, followed by Disney Land Hollywood and then a Busch Gardens Tampa in Florida. All three were great parks, and a totally different experience to Australian parks.. Universal and Disney were both seemingly more immersion based parks, the rides were more about experiences rather than thrill rides so to speak - though Disney had a couple of good ones. Busch Gardens was the opposite - basically full of thrill rides which was great fun!

Out of interest - whats the difference between a Top Spin and something like The Rampage at Adventure World?

Totally agree - it's something i learned working in a fast food chain. They had a procedure that managers had to do a walk around of the store every hour inside and out. Not saying it always happened every hour, but you could easily tell when it wasn't being done.

I used to work with a Grace who married a guy with the last name Grace, and became Grace Grace. Does anyone else agree these should already be in place? Like seriously, do rides get operated by untrained and incompetent staff now?Are there not already inspection processes in place? Do the parks not already have safety management systems? Also i hope there's log books in place now too? So what exactly are they changing? This sounds like a whole lot of hot air about things that are already in place.. Are they planning to now actually inspect and enforce these things? To me it reads like - we had all these requirements in place, but basically on an honour system, so now we'll actually do our jobs and enforce them! Also the paint stripping thing is a bit of a joke - this is the exact reason for NDT. If this is acceptable for offshore subsea equipment to have NDT without stripping paint, then should be more than sufficient for amusement rides. Honestly the scariest part of these recent ride failures is that the processes and procedures that are already in place weren't being followed. That's the biggest lapse here, and the hardest thing to enforce/stop recurrences of. The only way i can see it happening is actual penalties for the management in charge of enforcing these, and third party inspections by approved government inspectors.

Will the video / photos shown in the inquest be released to the public at the conclusion?