Schlitterbahn corporation indicted in Kansas water slide death

By Steve Vockrodt, Tony Rizzo, Laura Bauer and Glenn E. Rice

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Claiming corporate executives were rushed, careless and lacked expertise to design a thrill ride, an indictment Friday levied criminal charges against Schlitterbahn Water Park in the death of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab.

The 47-page indictment pulls together internal emails, blueprints, recordings and interviews with key witnesses to paint a picture that Schlitterbahn marched the 17-story Verruckt ride in Kansas City, Kan., to a public opening in 2014, despite serious questions about the ride’s safety.

The indictment also says that several riders had suffered injuries on Verruckt, ranging from concussions to lacerations to slipped spinal disks, and that “documentation of injuries began almost immediately.”

“(T)his child’s death and the rapidly growing list of injuries were foreseeable and expected outcomes,” the indictment said. “Verruckt’s designers and operators knew that Verruckt posed a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death or severe bodily harm.”

Caleb died on Aug. 7, 2016, when, while going down Verruckt, his raft went airborne and he was decapitated by a metal hoop that supported a netting system atop the ride. He had been seated in the front.

A director of operations, Tyler Austin Miles, has also been indicted. Miles, 29, surrendered to authorities on Friday and has been released on bond.

Friday’s indictment says that John Schooley, lead designer of Verruckt, “possessed no engineering credential relevant to amusement ride design or safety.” It also said that Jeff Henry, co-owner of Schlitterbahn, had no technical or engineering credentials.

Henry, according to the indictment, concocted the Verruckt idea in 2012 to “impress producers of Travel Channel’s Xtreme Waterparks series.”

Despite the nature of experimental amusement park rides needing extensive geometric and structural engineering, Friday’s indictment said that Henry rushed the timeline of Verruckt’s construction and design.

Email communications between Henry and Schooley were described in the indictment, and supported the allegation that Schlitterbahn accelerated the construction timeline of the attraction.

“Time, is of the essence. No time to die,” reads a Dec. 14, 2012, email from Henry to Schooley. “I have to micro manage this. NOW. This is a design product for TV, absolutely cannot be anything else. Speed is 100 percent required. A floor a day. Tough schedule.”

The indictment also said that warnings and misgivings were expressed by others during the construction of Verruckt and after it opened.

A steel detailer wrote an email to Verruckt’s project manager during construction that “there were still so many unknowns” and that “my requests fell on deaf ears.”

John Hunsucker, a consultant on Verruckt, warned Henry after the ride opened in 2014 that “Verruckt was unfinished and was still in an unsafe condition” and that Henry, according to the indictment, “obviously ignored the report because Verruckt remained in operation.”

Winter Prosapio, a spokeswoman for Schlitterbahn, did not immediately have a comment on the corporate indictment.

But an earlier statement sent to the Kansas City Star after Miles was arrested said the company was “shocked” by the news and that Schlitterbahn took safety seriously.

“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,” Prosapio said. “Our team has been conscientious and committed to providing visitors to the waterpark a safe and enjoyable experience. We are shocked by any allegations of impropriety or negligence on the part of anyone associated with Verruckt.”

Friday’s indictment suggests otherwise.

“Verruckt suffered from a long list of dangerous design flaws; however, the most obvious and potentially lethal flaw was that Verruckt’s design guaranteed that rafts would occasionally go airborne in a manner that could severely injure or kill the occupants,” the indictment said. “Henry, Schooley, and Miles all knew about this problem before the ride opened to the public.”