Kansas City, MO – A 10-year-old boy who was killed at a Kansas water park while riding on a 17-story waterslide was decapitated, a source told The Associated Press Wednesday.
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A person who is familiar with the investigation but is not authorized to speak about it said Caleb Schwab was decapitated Sunday on the “Verruckt” ride at the Schlitterbahn WaterPark in Kansas City, Kansas.
Caleb, the son of a Kansas lawmaker, was in a raft with two adults who were not related to him when he was killed on the 168-foot tall ride, which is billed as the tallest in the world. The other two people were treated for facial injuries.
At least two people who rode in the last year on “Verruckt” — German for “insane” — say nylon shoulder straps came loose during the raft ride.
It’s unclear whether the straps played any role in Caleb’s death. Police and Schlitterbahn have not provided any other details of Caleb’s death.
A spokeswoman for the waterpark on Wednesday declined to discuss the circumstances of the boy’s death.
The park said Tuesday that the ride would be closed for the remainder of the season.
On the 2-year-old waterslide certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest, riders sit in multi-person rafts that begin with the steep drop, followed by a surge up a second hill before a 50-foot descent to a finishing pool. Along the way, riders clutch ropes along the inside of the raft.
Riders are harnessed in with two nylon seatbelt-like straps — one that crosses the rider’s lap, the other stretching diagonally like a car shoulder seatbelt. Each strap is held in place by long Velcro-style straps, not by buckles.
Ken Martin, a Richmond, Virginia-based amusement park safety consultant, questioned whether the straps were appropriate for what he called “nothing more than a roller coaster with water.”
Paul Oberhauser told local television station KCTV that his shoulder restraint “busted loose” on his Verruckt raft July 26. The Nebraska man said he “just held on,” and a video shot by his wife shows the strap loose at the ride’s end. Oberhauser said he reported the matter to park workers.
Kenneth Conrad told WDAF-TV that during his trip down the waterslide last year with a friend, the friend’s shoulder strap came “completely off.” Conrad’s wife snapped a photo at the end of the ride showing the strap missing, and Conrad didn’t file a complaint with the park.
The park’s spokeswoman said in a statement that “a limited portion” of the park would reopen Wednesday.
Police were investigating the death as a criminal case although police spokesman Cameron Morgan said Tuesday that designation did not mean they suspect foul play.
Do we really need to know this? Would his parents want this to be public?
That was the original report. Then they sanitized it by callung it a neck injury. I remember thinking that decapitation is technically a really, really…bad neck injury.
Nebech, decapitations, eaten by alligators, better to keep your children home.
There is such a thing as an internal decapitation which sometimes is not obvious and there are cases of people actually surviving such an injury.