Four killed on rapids ride at Australian theme park
SYDNEY, Australia — Four people — including a young mother and her brother — were killed Tuesday when a river rapids ride malfunctioned at a popular theme park on Australia’s east coast, officials said.
Two men and two women died while on the ride at Dreamworld, a park on Queensland state’s Gold Coast, Queensland police officer Tod Reid told reporters.
Two children who were in the raft at the time of the accident were hospitalized, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Wednesday.
She did not detail the children’s condition or explain their relationship to the victims.
The Thunder River Rapids ride whisks people in circular rafts along a fast-moving, man-made river. A malfunction caused two people to be ejected from their raft, while two others were caught inside the ride, said Gavin Fuller, an officer with the Queensland Ambulance Service.
He did not know whether the two victims who were caught in the ride were trapped under water, or caught up in the machinery.
Park staffers administered first aid to the victims, but their injuries proved fatal, Fuller told reporters.
Kim Dorsett, of Canberra, confirmed that two of the victims were her children: Kate Goodchild, 32, and Luke Dorsett, 35.
“I have three children and have lost two of them today — my whole family has been wiped out,” she told Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper on Tuesday.
Kim Dorsett was on a family vacation with her children and Goodchild’s daughters from Canberra.
“I have two granddaughters — an eight-month-old and a 12-year-old — and it truly breaks my heart to know that my eight-month-old is never going to get to know her mom,” she said.
Police have declined to identify the other two victims, a 38-year-old man and a 42 year-old woman.
Reid said he was not aware of any previous problems with the ride.
Dreamworld CEO Craig Davidson said the park is working with police to try and determine what went wrong.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said there would be a thorough investigation into the cause of the incident. “Theme parks are a place for family fun and happiness, not tragedy,” he told reporters.