Miles, then the operations director, hid or destroyed documents detailing injuries sustained by riders, the indictment said.Ĭaleb’s family received a settlement of nearly $20 million last year from Schlitterbahn and other companies involved in the slide, The Kansas City Star reported. Park officials “obviously ignored” a consultant’s warning that the ride was unsafe, the indictment said.Īs investigators were looking into the death of the boy, Caleb Schwab, in August 2016, Mr. Investigators said park employees ignored serious problems: The passenger restraints were too weak and the rafts were poorly designed and tended to go airborne at the crest, putting riders’ heads in dangerous proximity to the netting and the poles. “Our staff, since we opened Schlitterbahn Kansas City, has demonstrated the highest dedication to safety, from the training of our lifeguards and ride operators, to ensuring all rides have operated in accordance with our strict protocols,” the company said in a statement. Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts, which is based in Texas, said it planned to contest the charges against the company and Mr. “These are not the actions of someone who believed the ride to be dangerous.” “Not only had Tyler ridden the slide numerous times, but, as the state is aware, he had scheduled his wife to ride it on the day of the accident,” Ms. One of his lawyers, Tricia Bath, said on Sunday that Mr. Miles was the only person charged in that document. Schooley, were mentioned in last week’s indictment of Mr. Henry and another designer of the water slide, John T. “It is a seriously dangerous piece of equipment today because there are things we don’t know about it,” the indictment quoted him as saying. In that pursuit, Schlitterbahn rushed to build a prototype without proper testing, did not involve engineers in all phases of its design and opened the slide to riders of all ages despite concerns about weight limits, the authorities said. The indictment portrayed a company that ignored its own warnings and hurried to construct a towering water slide in an effort to impress the producers of a Travel Channel show, “ Xtreme Waterparks,” which featured the slide in an episode. Netting covering the length of the slide, supported by metal poles, was meant to keep riders from falling off. Riders climbed 264 steps to the top before sitting in a raft that plummeted from a high point of about 17 stories and then soared over a crest on their way to a runoff pool at the bottom. “Verrückt” is German for “crazy” or “insane,” and the slide was built to thrill. On Friday, the office of the Kansas attorney general announced that Schlitterbahn Waterpark and Tyler Austin Miles, its former operations director, had been charged with 20 criminal counts, including involuntary manslaughter, aggravated endangering of a child and aggravated battery. Henry, a co-owner of Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts, was arrested in Texas near the border with Mexico on multiple charges in connection to the boy’s death.
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