Kansas boy's waterslide death could have been prevented, says woman injured the year before

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Brittany Dice says if the owners of a Kansas City waterpark had taken her seriously when she was injured there three years ago, 10-year-old Caleb Schwab would still be alive.

Caleb died in 2016 on the 17-storey Verruckt waterslide when the raft he was in went airborne and hit an overhead loop, decapitating him.

This week, Jeffrey Henry, the owner of the Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts, and John Timothy Schooley, who helped design Verruckt, were both arrested and charged with second-degree murder. 

• Son of U.S. politician killed on world's tallest waterslide in Kansas
• Straps 'busted loose' for 2 people on Kansas waterslide

According to the indictment against them, the business partners created the slide in a spur-of-the moment bid to get noticed by the Travel Channel's Xtreme Waterparks series, despite having no credentials in math, physics or engineering.

Dice was injured on Verruckt in 2015, a year before Caleb was killed. She spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about her experience. 

Here is part of that conversation

This is something you were keen to do before you went up the slide?

No. I visited the park June 16, 2015, which was actually my birthday, and I was kind of peer-pressured, I guess you could say, into riding the slide.

I didn't want to do it, but I was scared. Of course, it's the world's tallest waterslide, so everyone was talking me into doing it, and so I did it.

So I went down, and going down that first initial hill, my seatbelt came undone, which is just a piece of Velcro.

The raft started hydroplaning going down that first big slope. I became sideways in my seat, trying to get my balance and then we came to the second hill and I was thrown up because the raft went airborne.

When the raft came back down, I was thrown down and that's when I fractured my back.

Oh my gosh. This was the last stretch of it. Just describe all the various parts it that you were you were unstrapped for.

I was unstrapped the entire ride. After you get off that second hill, you go down a little hill and then you go in the landing pool.

Well, our raft didn't stop in the landing pool. It kept going and it smashed into the concrete wall.

Good heavens. And how badly were you injured?

I had three slipped discs in my back.

What did they say about it? Was there a complaint? Did they apologize? Did anything come of this?

They sent the manager over there and I actually had to be carried to the first aid room.

I got in there and they took two reports — one of which was an injury report stating how I was injured, what was hurting. 

And the other one was an incident report where I kept telling them over and over that the raft went airborne, the raft went airborne.

They had me sign the incident report and the manager walked out with that report — and now they can't find it.

And they wouldn't offer a refund. Nothing. There was no "I'm sorry." There was nothing.

Did you know that there had been other injuries at that point?

I did not.

When you heard, I guess a year after that in 2016, that this young fellow, this 10-year-old boy Caleb Schwab, was killed, he was decapitated coming down that slide, how did you respond?

I was mortified. All I could think of was that raft could have been my raft. Back in 2015 that could have been me and my friends that were on that ride.

And it's heartbreaking. I mean, as a mom, you hear that a child lost their life on a side that you were on and that you were injured on ... it's just awful. It is horrifying.

It seems to be where the injury happened, where he was killed, was around this netting and the metal bars. Can you describe that?

When you go down the slide, above you are these metal hoops that connect to the slide. And connected to the hoop is this netting, this mesh netting.

And, of course, once that raft goes airborne, I mean you're higher up in the air that you should be, so you're very, very, very close to those bars and netting.

And that's what happened to Caleb Schwab.

Yes.

If they had taken your report more seriously ... do you think that Caleb Schwab would be dead today?

I do not. I believe that Caleb would be safe and that waterslide would have been shut down before he even got to the park.

Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from Associated Press. Interview produced by Sarah Jackson.