Jdude95

Ms Crisp advised there was no pressure put on the ride ops to have the ride open and operating at 10. The priority was having the ride safe and ready to go. Ms Crisp confirmed that the unload operator should be facing the conveyor at all times and during training of Ms Williams, she stressed the importance of maintaining line of site with the conveyor. There had previously been an incident where a unload ride op had lost her footing due to a slippery floor and damaged her ankle but that was put down to human error. There was an occasion where a control panel ride op had shut the ride down due to there being ducklings in the trough and they didn’t wanna squish the ducks in front of guests. The ride op wasn’t reprimanded in anyway as this was considered as following normal procedure. There is an e-stop on a pole next to the control booth that would shut off the pump and conveyor. There was an e-stop button above the control panel that only shut down the pumps. Ms Crisp stated that the memo regarding not using the secondary e-stop had been at the ride for at least a month before the date that’s on the memo. Important memos relating to the operation of rides need to be signed off on by staff members. It ran the length of the conveyor. A lanyard e-stop is essentially a red rope that you can pull on to shut the ride down.

Ms Crisp has worked at the park for 8 years. Upon startup It takes 7 minutes for each pump to reach full capacity. The rails were added to the troughs in June 2016. The rails were added to prevent rafts bottoming out in the trough and prevent rafts from floating into the reservoir. There is an additional control panel on the conveyor catwalk that maintenance generally use. This would mean there’s a total of 3 e-stops. The one on the main control panel, the one on a pole at the unload station and one on the conveyor catwalk. There’s a sensor at the bottom of the conveyor, if it notices a raft has been in that sensor for more than 10 seconds, the conveyor will automatically shut down. The conveyor had a lanyard e-stop that ran the length of it, alone the catwalk. Only 2 cctv monitors at the control booth for through the ride.

Amy Crisp (partner of Michael Stead) Training and compliance officer/relief supervisor Ms Crisp was the staff member who trained the junior ride op (Courtney Williams) on the day of the incident from 9:30am to 11:15am Completed a 3 hour walk through of the ride with QPS and WHS officers, 5 days after the incident. Ms Crisp completed a “train the trainer” course to become a “Skills Coach in Operations” prior to the incident. we’ve just been adjourned for lunch, I shall resume at 2:30

Mr Stead states that every morning the maintenance supervisor should go over the breakdown policy and operation policy with the maintenance team prior to starting. The maintenance staff members would rotate roles between park technician and maintenance. Park technicians are allocated to be the first point of call for any technical difficulties in that day. Generally there was 2 park technicians, one electrical and one mechanical. Both park technicians must attend any faults and once it’s ascertained whether the fault was mechanical or electrical, the unneeded technician would leave the ride. Mr Stead stated that there was no specific training provided on how to ascertain if there is any immediate danger on any rides, he relies on common sense to make this judgement. If they are unsure how to do this, they are required to call a supervisor before any further action can be taken. Mr Stead stated that it was a surprise to him that the south pump had broken down as the pumps don’t fail often. If there is a fault with a critical component such as the pump, the park technicians MUST contact their supervisor to advise how to proceed. New maintenance staff should be shadowed by a trainer and then a supervisor who will also ask the new staff member to explain every point on their daily checklist and what it means before they are signed off to be a technician or maintenance without supervision. Mr Stead’s licence to perform high risk work expired in September 2015 but states that his licence is currently valid but cannot remember the date it was renewed. Mr Stead cannot confirm if it was renewed before it expired. Mr Stead had previously been tasked with evacuating guests off TRR while other maintenance/technicians were working on the ride but he had received no formal training on ride evacuations. Part of the opening checklist is that the maintenance staff will drain the ride completely and do a walkthrough of the channel, after this was done, all the lanyard stops were checked and the conveyor was inspected for damage or bowed slats. Testing e-stops weren’t part of the daily checklist. Mr Stead states that he has never replaced any of the conveyor slats due to bowed slats, only due to damage. Mr Stead advised that in his opinion, the safety culture at Dreamworld was very sound. Mr Stead had never previously raised any safety concerns or heard of any safety concerns being raised about TRR.

Any time there is a fault with the ride, the operators must stop the ride and contact the supervisory team. Ms Cotter does not remember any instance of a ride op raising any safety concerns about the ride with her. Ms Cotter trained any new unload staff that if there was any concerns or issues to just hit the e-stop as first point of call. Ms Cotter was not aware of the 2014 incident where rafts bumped and was not aware of the 2001 incident. In the event of an emergency, one of the other ride ops could also access the e-stop on the unload platform. Ms Cotter confirmed that there was ample time to shut down the ride upon the water level dropping and the rafts colliding during the 2016 incident. It was possible to send 2 rafts together but there was process in place to prevent that. There had always been a risk of rafts bumping according to Ms Cotter Pictures from the 2001 incident were shown and the images were very similar to pictures from the 2016 incident in where the rafts ended up. One of the seat backs on the raft had also been damaged, looking similar to the raft that was removed from the conveyor during the 2016 incident. Ms Cotter confirmed that it would have been helpful if she was advised about the 2001 incident. Michael Stead Maintenance/mechanical fitter Has been employed since 2013 Michael is the partner of another ride op. Mr Stead said that there are scheduled maintenances and checks that take place daily, weekly, 3 monthly, 6 monthly and yearly. He can’t recall which things are specifically checked outside of the daily maintenance. The yearly maintenance is stated as a complete pull apart and check of TRR. Mr Stead doesn’t recall the ride ever being fully disassembled and checked. Mr Stead confirmed that he was always aware of the e-stop and it’s function on the unload platform. Once it was pressed, it would send an alarm to the main control panel which would illuminate a blue light and sound an alarm. Mr Stead recalls that he was part of the team that installed the anti rollback devices onto TRR. Mr Stead is unaware if the north pump will continue to operate if the south pump fails. Also unsure if the pumps are started individually or together. Mr Stead was advised that an electrician was booked to inspect the south pump the day after the incident. Mr Stead stated that the rails added to the troughs had been replaced before and were checked daily. The slats are inspected daily for damage to check for bowing, loose fittings or damaged components. Mr Stead advised that the anti rollback gates were installed to prevent rafts from slipping on the conveyor but he is not aware of any previous issues to warrant this change.

Sarah Cotter She was shown images of the control panel and asked to describe the functions of all the buttons. She then described that there’s only 1 e-stop button on the control panel that doesn’t shut everything off. The alarms were removed due to it accidentally triggering an emergency response for a non emergency situation. She isn’t 100% sure when it was removed. Ms Cotter confirmed that the ride ops on the day didn’t hit the emergency alarm button which would sound the alarm alerting all staff of an emergency situation. Ms Cotter personally doesn’t understand why the secondary conveyor e-stop hadn’t been pressed. Ms Cotter confirmed that she only knew the function of that button due to testing it out of curiosity. Ms Cotters personal opinion of the event was that upon arrival, the conveyor was still operating and she’s unsure if they conveyor was stopped due to an e-stop or due to it getting jammed with a raft. Unload ride ops are trained to be constantly monitoring the conveyor. Unload ops should be facing the direction of the conveyor at all times. Ms Cotter had heard gossip that a staff member was terminated in 2014 due to shutting off the conveyor without good reason. Ms Cotter mentioned that the ride wasn’t stressful for her but she’s never been presented with an emergency situation. Pre opening checklists included whether the first aid kit was stocked. The report that was shown was for a week during October 2016 and it was shown that the first aid kit had not been restocked in the whole week and the ride continued to operate without issue. Ms cotter confirms that she has only ever pressed the e-stop to check its function and never while there were guests on the ride. She believes she first did this in 2014. Ms cotter had heard rumours of the e-stop being pressed by another ride op in 2015 after a raft slipped down the conveyor. When supervisors are trained to be a trainer, they will be retrained on the smaller rides and slowly work up to being taught how to train new staff on the larger rides.

Okay everyone, so this week I am attending the Dreamworld Inquest and taking notes from within the courtroom. These notes are purely just me writing what is said and doesn't include any personal opinions or bias. This also includes information that wasn't necessarily posted by the media as they generally pick one focus point per day and only talk about that. I was posting these notes to a group of people throughout the day as it happened and it was requested that I combine all the notes from today into one document and post it here. I'm posting it as a viewable google document as I'd rather not post my 5 page summary of today directly into the forums. Some of the notes may seem like it's out of order or a bit out of nowhere but the whole document is in chronological order as it was discussed As I will be there all week and it's been requested that I post the updates on here, I would like to put it out to you guys, would you prefer a summary at the end of each day or would you prefer I post the live updates directly into here as they happen? The live updates will be a bit hurried and most likely very frequent (with potential grammatical errors) so it could still spam the thread. I also wont be able to reply to anyone for any questions or clarifications until I've made it home for the day, as information comes fast and heavy with this inquest. Anyway, here is the link the today's notable findings. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dXKLUHzy_glOlVLMwN0pXghXpJQxODat18LZvsNTAlg/edit?usp=sharing

I went today to check out the Stormtrooper weekend and the pass centre was packed with a line out the door for most of the day. Still many people buying new passes or upgrading despite the negative light that has been shed on Dreamworld this past week.

By the end of all of this, it's looking more like Dreamworld will just sit dormant as Ardent closes it down and the company dissolves. Hopefully a theme park company can come in and pick Dreamworld up. Then they can begin to rebuild that trust and be fully transparent about their safety measures, one day bringing Dreamworld back to being a force in the industry like it used to be.

Hahaha, everyone needs a laugh every now and then

The one person I talk to most actually raves about the food all the time. Village seem to take care of their staff which is always good.

I know a few staff members who work in the offices and call centre onsite.

The food out at the EDR is much much nicer than the in-park food. Definitely not leftovers.

N'aww, how cute, The skeet is being a dick for the sake of being a dick. When did I proclaim that I was an expert in anything? I'm sorry oh wise master asshole Skeet. I'll make sure I run everything I post by you first to make sure I'm not offending your opinion of me.

I also thought this topic had been discussed before, at length even?

With a such a reliable source like that, how could you go wrong...

Just paint around the gondola swinging 40m in the air

Everyone gives Vekoma shit based off Arkham Asylum. Arkham is a 25 year old ride, any 25 year old ride is going to be rough. If you look at what Vekoma have been up to recently. They are really becoming a force to be reckoned with and are holding their own against the big boys like Mack and Intamin.

Haha, you have a point there but I can still guarantee those are higher quality than the Trolls Village will be. The rendering looks nice but I feel like it really wont look that nice in person. I was originally concerned about the screams coming from Kevil Hill behind it ruining the atmosphere for kids. Then I remembered no one goes in there anyway so at least it'll be quiet.

To be fair, no other theme park in the world would paint some plywood and try to call it an attraction. So it is probably a world-first

With Disney World, you're able to book your fastpass in advance which is a bullshit system. I much prefer Disneylands fastpass system. Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride is a really amazing family coaster with tilting carriages and dark indoor sections, I didn't get a chance to go on it when I was there because the line was 2 hours long and about 20 minutes into waiting, the ride broke so we gave up. I can see why it's so popular though.

Why would they think children over 10 understand stoppages when whole media outlets still can't get their heads around a stoppage.

One article: "Painful death" Another article: "Killed instantly" Surely it's not that painful if it's instant?

HWSD is closed so they can replace the shade sails/roofs, they won't be streaming the games in there. I can't understand why they chose this time period to do it but hey, I'm not a multi million dollar corporation so what would I know.

And nothing of value will be missed during this period.