THUNDER, DEATHS AND THE MYSTERY BUTTONS
THEME parks are like giant meccano sets. Bits and pieces change across the years like the owners. The inquest into the Dreamworld tragedy shows how the Thunder River Rapids Ride evolved.
In their cross-examination of police witnesses this week, lawyers for Dreamworld briefly referred to the ride’s history, how it opened and how respected engineer Len Shaw had been a park supervisor.
Riders sat on a six-person circular raft and put on a velcrose belt as they travelled back past the ride’s queue and into a cave under the Eureka Mine Ride’s station before being brought back up to the level of the waiting station by a conveyor belt.
Dreamworld developer John Longhurst, who in 1974 bought 85ha of land at Coomera to build his dream, fondly recalls Mr Shaw as the park’s former operational manager.
“He was in charge of our maintenance. He had worked for the government (before that) inspecting the rides,” Mr Longhurst told the Bulletin.
“Then he came to work for us full time. He would have checked on it. I visited all the theme parks around the world. It wasn’t a complicated ride — it was one of the best rides we had.”
Mr Longhurst recalled that after he sold the park, he saw a photograph of the ride that showed there had been modifications.
“Somebody has pulled out a couple of timber planks from the lift. One boat would come up and hit another,” he said.
Mr Longhurst says he thought about discussing the changes with Mr Shaw but the respected theme park veteran, who retired in 2001, died in 2012.
“It has all been caused through some maintenance area. Someone has decided to make a change. We had millions of people going through that ride every year. But we never had any problems with it. It would have been brought to my notice.”
Introducing new rides is a costly exercise. Disney’s Hollywood’s Studios, as of last year, no longer has any of the park’s original attractions since opening in 1989. Dreamworld’s River Rapids, by contrast, was a permanent fixture.
The evidence from police investigators at the inquest this week showed the ride being problematic since 2001 and modifications being made to improve safety.
In the late 1980s or early 1990s, at a date which could not be specified, the ride underwent maintenance to remove wooden slats near the conveyor belt, creating a gap.
Two safety audits — one in 1999 and the other in 2006 — warned about pump failure and wear marks on the rafts along with bowing of the boards.
Police investigators Detective Sergeant Nicola Brown and Senior Constable Steven Cornish have worked hard to obtain a complex paper trail of safety investigations.
They discovered that on January 18, 2001, a raft flipped on the Thunder River Rapids Ride during a dry run before the park opened for the day.
Rafts had stopped due to a protrusion on the conveyor belt. A safety manager later wrote in an internal email that they “shudder to think” what would have happened if guests were on it.
But when asked to speculate if an accident could happen with guests a report concluded “the possibility of this occurring is nil”.
Lawyers for Dreamworld were quick to establish the accident was not due to water levels falling. The failure of the south pump and drop in water triggered the 2016 tragedy.
The evidence established other incidents occurred, there were rectifications to the ride, and external audits conducted.
By early 2016 a safety audit across the entire park gave Dreamworld a rating of 41.7 per cent. A pass is 75 per cent.
On October 19, 2016, 30 years after the Thunder River Rapids Ride opened, its south pump failed. Engineers described it as an “earth fault” and reset the pump.
A maintenance check was booked for October 27.
Early on October 25, Peter Nemeth had been working at the Giant Drop and the Big Red Car ride. The 40-year-old experienced ride operator was scheduled to go to the Thunder River Rapids Ride after lunch.
“I was told twice that the pump had been down twice and if it happened again (they) would have to stop the ride for a day,” he said.
He regarded the ride as difficult, there was a lot of noise from pumps, music and the queues of tourists.
“(The Thunder River Rapids Ride) was the most stressful out of all the rides. There were much more things to look out for,” he said.
Between 9.35-11.05am, 21year-old Courtney Williams received training to become a level two operator, enabling her to work at the unload area at the Rapids Ride.
At 11.50am the south pump had an “earth fault” and engineers reset it. This happened again at 1.09pm and the pump was reset so the ride could continue. At 2.03pm the ride failed for a third time. A raft was stuck on the conveyor because the water level dropped, caught on the safety rails.
Another raft was carrying Canberra tourists Kate Goodchild, 32, her brother Luke Dorsett, 35, and his partner Roozbeh Araghi, 38, and Gosford resident Cindy Low. On board also were two children, Ms Low’s 10-year-old son Kieran and Ms Goodchild’s 12year-old daughter Ebony.
Peter Nemeth noticed the water levels drop, pushed the slower stop button on the control panel several times. Five to 10 metres separated the two rafts. The button was supposed to stop the conveyor belt within eight seconds.
THE (RAPIDS RIDE WAS THE MOST STRESSFUL OUT OF ALL THE RIDES. THERE WERE MUCH MORE THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR
OPERATOR PETER NEMETH
Ms Williams recalled at training being told not to use the emergency button which could stop the conveyor in two seconds.
She was not confident about using the control panel. She tried to activate a gate release button to bring the stuck raft back to the unload area.
Ms Williams turned her back on the conveyor belt for “10 to 15 seconds”, searched for Mr Nemeth who had his back to her, ushering guests towards a raft.
When he turned back to see her, the rafts were only one second away from colliding. He knew he could not run 10m in a second to push the emergency button.
Fifty-seven seconds had elapsed. The two rafts collided.
Kieran was rescued by Ms Williams. Ebony remained in the raft and managed to free herself. Two adults were trapped, two fell out. The four were killed.
Ms Williams sat with Kieran and made sure she shielded him from the horror before them as police and emergency crews rushed to the scene.
At the time the incident was put down to operator error.
Families of the victims this week, at the inquest, comforted the operators through lawyers. They did not consider them responsible.