Thrill ride deaths led to fears of terrorism
GOLD Coast police were forced to investigate possible terrorist links to the Dreamworld tragedy.
Ahead of the first anniversary of the Thunder River Rapids ride disaster in which four people died, News Corp can reveal that the police response had to first rule out the possibility of a terrorist attack, and whether other sites were also targets.
Detective Inspector Tod Reid, the most senior uniformed officer on duty that day, said the nightmare possibility of a terrorist attack was at the forefront of the initial police response.
“Dreamworld is an iconic site for a potential target ( and) if you’re not thinking about these sorts of issues in this day and age, you’re not thinking widely enough.
“We had to go through that before we could rule it out.”
While any terror link was quickly ruled out, it was small consolation for many of the officers on the scene of what will go down as the most traumatic day of their careers.
Now, the Inspector Reid who was in charge of Logan’s Criminal Investigation Branch, was the duty officer called to Dreamworld on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 25.
It had already been a gloomy start to the day as he joined dozens of colleagues farewelling his one- time mentor, the Gold Coast’s former Superintendent Paul Ziebarth who died suddenly while gokarting with his son the previous week. But the day was about to get a whole lot worse.
“I remember I started on the 2pm shift, and I got the call that there had been an accident on a ride and there were people hurt,” he said.
“You don’t assume the worst ... but when I was still on the road I got another call that there was at least one fatality.
“That’s when we knew that this was tragic.”
It was Inspector Reid who appeared before the TV cameras faced with the unenviable task of telling the world what had happened. BRIGHT FUTURE: Port of Townsville acting general manager business development Maria James.