Accident on Splash Canyon

[otwidalepda]

I wouldn't leave my own 10-11 year old to walk around a theme park and ride alone though, so not sure how I feel about the thought that teacher's may do this on trips. Had always (naively?) assumed that the reason they take so many volunteer parents on these trips was so that they could split into small groups and maintain supervision :/

Teacher here - in my experience, the pupils are told to stay in groups and are left to go around the parks / resorts themselves. There are specific meeting points around the parks that they 'check-in' with. Some groups of children generally have an teaching assistant with them for most of it where additional needs are identified.

Not saying this is right (I do not agree!) but that is the practice.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

Teacher here - in my experience, the pupils are told to stay in groups and are left to go around the parks / resorts themselves. There are specific meeting points around the parks that they 'check-in' with. Some groups of children generally have an teaching assistant with them for most of it where additional needs are identified.

Not saying this is right (I do not agree!) but that is the practice.

Oh dear, seems like an accident waiting to happen :/ but I guess they do have to start gaining some independence and self responsibility some time... And it’s not the worst place for that. But it’s very odd given the importance placed on security at schools these days and since 1995 with the high fences, electric gates etc.

These trips are invaluable to their development though, even the so called ‘fun’ trips are beneficial, so I guess if that’s the way they are enabled then I’m all for it... Just a huge surprise to me is all.

 

[Ian]

Haven’t read the report, but is the argument that the park didn’t do enough to prevent the girl from standing up/but follow rules?

 

[rob666]

There is nothing to stop a child jumping out of Valhalla, but when they do, and it happens quite often in school trip season, the supervisor spots it on cctv, the ride stops, the music stops, floodlights come on, and a full safety warning is blasted out. Security are called out and the individuals dealt with at the station.
Every last time.
That didn't happen at Drayton.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

Haven’t read the report, but is the argument that the park didn’t do enough to prevent the girl from standing up/but follow rules?

I haven't read the hse report either, I can't find it. I've only read snippets of things today in news articles, as well as the coroners report (which itself is pretty damning, I'll link below) The main thing that has been mentioned in the news articles I've read, but isn't really mentioned in the coroners report, and could be seen as most damning, is that it took 10 minutes for staff to be aware enough of the incident to hit the e-stop.


That does seem quite bad, 10 minutes in an emergency like that is a very long time. The reports state that after falling in she was able to stand and was 'wading' her way back to the boat, climbed over something, and ended up falling into a deeper part water... I can't help wonder if this would have happened had staff been more alert, and even if she had fallen into the deeper part, would it have been critical if the ride had been e-stopped? :/

The coroners report: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Evha-Jannath-2019-0368.pdf

It's quite bad to be fair, and is pretty much what furie suspected on the previous page... Whilst nothing the park did caused the situation to occur, their lack of action, and readiness, reduced the survivability of such an accident.

The part in there about 'theming including water cannons' is saddening from an enthusiasts POV, and explains why every rapids in the UK is now utter dog $#!t3

 

[Pokemaniac]

From what I can tell, the problem wasn't, as such, that the poor girl fell out of the boat. She seems to have managed to get up just fine, and even spoken to bystanders. She must have been soaked, but okay at that point. But a guest-out-of-the-boat situation should be treated as a dire emergency, and it wasn't. It seems she was left to find her own way out of the attraction, and ended up in deep water where she tragically drowned. And it still took ten minutes before anything was done about it. That's the major bleep-up committed here. If there even existed any routines for what to do when somebody falls out of the boat, they clearly weren't followed. When such a thing happens, it's all about stopping everything and getting a staff member to assist the rider immediately, because a rapids ride can be a very, very dangerous place to be. Rushing water deep enough to drown in, freely floating rafts weighing hundreds of kilos, and partially submerged, moving machinery. It's one pyrotechnics effect away from checking off every single hazard on the OSHA bingo board.

In a risk management model, a guest falling out of a boat would be considered a "hazardous event". It's generally something you want not to happen, and you have barriers in place to prevent it from happening (proactive barriers), but it should not automatically lead to disaster. There should be reactive barriers as well, and these appear to have been inadequate or failed on that fateful day.

It's like someone falling into the tiger enclosure in a zoo. The fall is not necessarily the dangerous bit, it's what happens afterwards. Given the nature of a rapids ride and the somewhat unpredictable behaviour of the average park-goer, you can't really assume that no falls will happen. It becomes even more imperative to have a plan to deal with that situation, and Drayton's was clearly not good enough. That's what they're being sued for. Not for someone falling out of a boat, but for an otherwise survivable fall leading to a death.