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?

Everyone's out to cover their own asses here, always the way in any fault finding mission. What hasn't been clearly stated - that i've found - is whether or not the e stop was actually triggered. The operator says they did, the trainer and police officers seem to indicate that it *may* not have been. If its found that it wasn't triggered, then the operators may be at least in a small way responsible. Ultimately operating a ride is a serious business, and a big responsibility. There should be consequences to not performing your job, especially given there was 4 fatalities. I'm pretty sure what they've been through, and will continue to go through for the rest of their lives is punishment enough though. Now before anyone goes after me with a pitch fork and flaming torch, i do believe Dreamworld are clearly at fault. Also even if the operators didn't trip the e stop, there's so many contributing factors such as confusion around how it worked, instructions to only use certain buttons in certain circumstances, whether it was confusing/labelled correctly etc etc. What i'm personally finding confronting is how any of these issues were allowed to occur. I expect these kind of safety issues to happen in some third world country where safety inspectors get paid off to look the other way, not here in Australia where we have morals and ethics, not to mention fines and enforcement. I guess what i'm saying is that despite cheaper tickets, run down appearances and other obvious corner cutting - you still assume the park is safe. I've found talking to a lot of people about the incident prior to the inquest were very much of the default opinion that this was just a freak accident, and that ultimately the park was safe.. having heard a few of these testimony's i'm not sure i will ever go back to Dreamworld - at least under the current management. If it's determined that Dreamworld are at fault - i really hope there's actual punishment for the people involved, not just fines to the company.

Has to be either iScoobie, or maybe Scoobie Coaster 2.0 for sure.. OOOOhh i know! Scooby McScoobface!

I agree with the activist and do-gooder issues with the animal attractions, but if you take away the animal attractions then Sea World becomes what?? Why is it even needed at that point? They would be better closing the park completely and diverting all the funds to Movie World / Wet n Wild. I would much prefer to see 2 awesome parks, rather than 3 average parks.

Wild idea.. but do they need to invest in rides at Sea World. I mean they already have two other parks that are all about the rides, Sea World is more about the animals. I've always found the strategy of having three separate parks really odd, i mean that significantly increases overhead, and reduces the overall investments made in the park.

I was reading this yesterday... phenomenal. Though the next questions that should be asked is how in the hell did this get certified for the public to use. I thought the whole concept of approvals and oversights was so this type of thing couldn't happen!

How.. selfless.. of them.. i'm sure having globally recognized athletes posting photos and updates about enjoying their time at the park's won't have any benefit to the park's at all /sarcasm haha good on them for giving it to the Volunteers too though, that part's definitely giving back!

ah the good old Vomatron.. have fond memories of this at the Perth Royal Show.

I don't think it's specific to cruises, but just a general reaction to the overall reduction in price of international travel including cruising. I would suggest in years gone by it's been a case of the only affordable option was a local domestic holiday. However now, for similar cost you can take a cruise or travel internationally. So whilst people will still come visit the gold coast once, there would be a lot less repeat business. We have the same problem in WA where it's regularly far cheaper to fly to Bali for a week, than to take a long weekend down south in Margaret River. Hell i've seen holiday packages to Bali in 5* accommodation for a week inc flights for less than just the return flights to Broome. Another thing not really taken into consideration in most of the figures mentioned in other postings is the actual cost of living whilst on holiday. This is especially prevalent when comparing to cruises or most Asian destinations. On your Gold Coast holiday you could easily add a couple of thousand for food and activities - 3 meals a day plus snacks, also the various attractions (Ripley's, Q1 skydeck etc), not to mention any tours you do. With cruising it's typically all inclusive of food / activities etc - sure there's up charge options for on shore tours and restaurants, but you could have just as good a time without buying them. With Asian destinations the cost of food and activities is generally significantly cheaper. You can get a 3 course meal with drinks for $10, you can hire a driver/tour guide for the day for $100.

Might want to adjust your link iwerks - that links straight to your receipt for your donation.

I think the biggest difference between AW and the east coast parks is i expect majority of the visitors are locals. Sure we have some tourists, but nothing like what the gold coast gets. This means the park really needs to keep innovating and adding new experiences to justify people returning and spending money. If they stop investing into new attractions they'll be fine for 2 - 3 years and people will get bored and stop going or at least going less. For example my personal experience - i used to have a season pass every year back around 99 - 2000 ish. However after the Power Surge they invested into the Kids areas, and a couple of water slides - none of which were really epic or a draw card of any sort. So from memory i went once the year after the Power Surge was installed and then i don't think i went again until Inferno was put in. Following that it was another few years until Abyss was installed before i returned. As mentioned the park only opens for ~half the year, so that would reduce it's operational costs quite significantly in comparison to the east coast parks. Rides are expensive to operate - and running rides with 1 - 2 riders during low seasons or mid week don't cost a whole lot less that running it full to capacity. Also given the lack of competition or alternatives people will actually visit whilst the parks open. Basically it's not like they're missing out of alot of business by being closed for half the year, instead those people will come when the park reopens and they run at capacity for those few months. So TLDR - they need to keep investing to keep people coming back. If they stop investing, people will stop coming. I don't think the level of investment is way out there in consideration of the returns they're seeing. The MI's are done every 2 years right, so that's 2.5 - 3 mil every year being put aside and reinvested into the park. If the park keeps growing and attracting more visitors - and really the only way for that to happen is to keep investing - then it will become sustainable. Especially as theirs no investors queuing up with their hands out wanting a return every year, there's no reason the money can't get all reinvesting into the park. I expect we'll see the MI's move to every 3 years soon or maybe even 4 years with a smaller attraction added in the alternate 2 years (~3mil). The more rides AW has, the more capacity is has to soak up crowds and thus get more bodies through the doors on the days it's open.