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Drayton Manor Park - Splash Canyon Incident

This really is such sad news. My thoughts go out to her family and not just the staff directly involved, but the entire Drayton Manor team.
 
My sympathies are extended to all those involved, from family and friends through to the park team.

Disappointed with those media outlets who are already peddling their apparent incessant vilification of the theme park industry and unnecessary mentions of past events. I understand the need to report, but the bias is infuriating!!
 
I dislike the Daily Mail as much as the next man, but once again - I will vehemently defend their right to write this stuff.

Plus, I don't think that's a terrible display from them to be honest. There's nothing factually incorrect on there. Links to The Smiler are fair, I think. Two theme parks, in the same county. Two tragic incidents.

Probably blames an immigrant on page 2.
 
I dislike the Daily Mail as much as the next man, but once again - I will vehemently defend their right to write this stuff.

Plus, I don't think that's a terrible display from them to be honest. There's nothing factually incorrect on there. Links to The Smiler are fair, I think. Two theme parks, in the same county. Two tragic incidents.

Probably blames an immigrant on page 2.
Not really relevant. it's just a mention for the sake of it
 
I have no issue with a link being made to previous incidents in the country as part of wider coverage in the main article. But on the front page where they barely have space to establish what they know about today's incident before diving into something that happened two years ago now? Nah.
 
I would be surprised if an adult was not on the ride with children that young, (11 is very young) I know at my daughter's school they always ask for parent volunteers for trips like this, but we really shouldn't jump to any conclusions until we get the full details.

Doubtful there was an adult, we're still in the same Country so I doubt regulations are much different but last time I was volunteered for a theme park trip the risk assessment was one adult to every twelve kids for that age group, and every adult had to have an active, and obviously clean Enhanced DBS Certificate or they couldn't go. My sons school actually went to the extra length of reducing the ratio to 2:12 but we still managed to loose one kid who sneaked off to Dragon Falls on his own.

Having said that we all know even if there was an adult in the boat, there was probably little they could do once the girl had gone overboard.

The immediate short term solution to this is I can see everybody being given life jackets in the station and lap belts, not that either will actually stop the most determined person from getting out their seat mid-ride if they wanted (I'm not saying this is what happened, but we all know what an excited bunch of 11 year olds are oftrn like at theme parks)..

Typical Mail, only took them a few short paragraohs to link it to Smiler, when really the only relevance is both accidents happened in the same County.
 
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I have no issue with a link being made to previous incidents in the country as part of wider coverage in the main article. But on the front page where they barely have space to establish what they know about today's incident before diving into something that happened two years ago now? Nah.
If they were going to bring up past incidents at other parks at all then they should have mentioned M&D's as most recent UK incident, or Australia if going for ride type.

The only commonality this and Smiler share is the county the parks are located in. It's not the same kind of ride involved, company owners (would be if both are Merlin operated but they're not) etc etc, so it is essentially irrelevant. Unless they go on to blame park staff on the basis 'perhaps'* some have worked at both locations.

*Daily Fail accuracy not required
 
An absolutely tragic event with a horrific outcome, at this time thoughts go out to all involved especially those who knew the girl either through school, socially and of course close family and friends.

What happened and how is at this time only speculation, and until further details are announced/released then no more can be done.
If she was standing up or there was an element of horseplay then what controls are/were in place to prevent this?
earlier on it was mentioned that people had been messing around on this ride, in my opinion anyone found to be deliberately acting in a manner that endangers themselves or others should be ejected from the park and prevented from admission to that park and others for a set period of time or life, and the banned list should be publicised to make people aware that there is a zero tolerance approach to horseplay and inappropriate behaviour to discourage others.

As for Big T
I would be surprised if an adult was not on the ride with children that young, (11 is very young) I know at my daughter's school they always ask for parent volunteers for trips like this, but we really shouldn't jump to any conclusions until we get the full details.
when i was younger i went on many school/scout/youth group trips to various theme parks, and we were pretty much left to our own devices after being put in groups.

I am now in the midst of organising a Scout trip camping inside Alton towers on the lawns at the bottom of towers street as an adult leader, We've done this before and the usual method of operation when the theme park is open is that the Scouts are grouped up and sent out to enjoy the park on their own without direct adult supervision if they want to split/change groups they can do they also have the leaders mobile phone numbers and instructions on what to do if lost or missing members of their group. Leader wise a few of us will also be out enjoying the rides and bumping into the scouts, or giving them a quick tour of the place if they are up to going on the big rides ( and can hack the pace of trying to get all the big rides done before lunch)
The other option is to spend all day with a few other Scout and guide leaders looking at the gardens ( and hearing moans that they are not maintained as they were back in the 60's and 70's)

A couple of years ago we did a Scout trip to Holland and used the same system at Walibi world, and in Amsterdam city centre - these are kids aged from 10 to 14
 
The statement from Jameah Girls Academy, for anyone that can't open the link

May, 9, 2017

Parents/guardians will be aware that pupils and staff of Jameah Academy, based in Leicester, went on a school trip to Drayton Manor Park on Tuesday 9th May 2017. Whilst at the theme park, an incident took place whereby a pupil from year 6 was airlifted to hospital. Sadly, she later passed away.

We are liaising with the relevant authorities at this time. Please be assured that the safety and wellbeing of all of our pupils is a priority. We would also request that the family, as well as the school community, be given the time to grieve. The school is also providing support to pupils and staff. We are unable to provide any further information at this time.
 
Reposting their articles is the reason they write them. Don't repost them, they're paid by attention, the articles don't mean anything if you don't repost them.
Paul Dacre will no doubt be sponsoring a Syrian migrant with the royalties he receives from that screenshot.
 
Such awful news, my thoughts too go out to the family, workers and schoolmates.

We have all stood up on these rides and lets be honest, rapids rides to leave quite a bit to chance, Granted you are very very safe but there really is nothing stopping you hurting yourself if by accident or by not following instructions. In an era when we are fencing off rocks the rapids seems to have escaped peoples attention.

As for the impact on the theme park industry, I'm pretty sure Congo and Rumba will be closed for the foreseeable future and we can all say goodbye to the S&S concept rumoured for next year. The UK theme park industry was starting to pick up the accident at Alton Towers in 2015. This may have an impact on SW8 and Icon. I doubt the ride will reopen as, unlike The Smiler, it is not a must-do attraction but will need replacing or redesigned boats. I do wonder though if this will have any impact on Infinity Falls coming next year, or even changes to Congo/Rumba.

This was my first reaction after hearing about an accident, Smiler is very fresh in peoples minds and this will bring it all back even if it was a different cause. Both parks are now aimed at the midlands so people will be aware of both accidents and I think certainly schools will once again start pulling out of trips at both parks.
The future of the rapids in Drayton, I can't see them staying. if i recall they were well past their sell by date anyway so there will be little point IMO trying to re brand/refurbish. Maybe even that whole area might go including shockwave which is itself seen better days.

Sad Sad news :(
 
As for the impact on the theme park industry, I'm pretty sure Congo and Rumba will be closed for the foreseeable future and we can all say goodbye to the S&S concept rumoured for next year. The UK theme park industry was starting to pick up the accident at Alton Towers in 2015. This may have an impact on SW8 and Icon. I doubt the ride will reopen as, unlike The Smiler, it is not a must-do attraction but will need replacing or redesigned boats. I do wonder though if this will have any impact on Infinity Falls coming next year, or even changes to Congo/Rumba.
I think you're overthinking this. Parks are well aware that this kind of thing can happen, but they continue to operate rapids rides because the risk is so small. Also, many of the new parks, particularly in China are installing them - they're not a historic ride system without new installs.

Just think how many million riders have experienced one of these rides since the first one opened in 1980(?). Six Flags had a boat flip in the late 1990s at Over Texas, Dreamworld had their horrific accident and I am sure there have been a couple of others that aren't coming to mind right now. Stuff happens - that doesn't make the individual incidents any less tragic - but you have to look at is for what it is.

I don't disagree that there could be some negative VIBES - but the industry will deal with that.
 
Tragically sad.

I really hoped not to be reading about another awful accident just two years after The Smiler.

Sympathies to the girl, her family and all the staff and spectators to what happened. Whatever the cause of this, I agree that a zero tolerance policy to irresponsible behavior is needed at theme parks.

As for the Daily Mail ban it brigade... get stuffed!

The world is full of killjoys who want to ban everything they don't like, whilst doing any number of statistically more dangerous things that they do like.

I'm all for reasonable and preventative safety precautions, but life comes with risk. What part of that do they not understand.

I don't want to live in a sterile, boring, grey world of no fun.

I don't play rugby or football. I don't smoke and I don't drink to excess. I don't ski, race, or do many things that people like... but I do love roller coaster's. If people want to do these things and there not hurting anyone else I say good luck to them.

As a responsible adult I recognise that EVERYTHING carries at least a tiny degree of risk and I make my own decisions. Don't know about you lot, but I want to live a bit, before I die.

With odds of hundreds of millions to one against a serious accident, I'll take those odds.

Let's mitigate risk through quality engineering and safety procedures, but seriously... let's live a bit!
 
The Daily Mail don't actually give a damn about this incident if that makes it any better. They just want you to legitimise their articles by talking and getting angry about them. We all know it's a load of rubbish - that's their formula for getting your attention, simple as that really.
 
and I am sure there have been a couple of others that aren't coming to mind right now

Thorpe had a boat go over within a few weeks of their ride opening (speaking of, how that kid never drowned is beyond me).

As a responsible adult I recognise that EVERYTHING carries at least a tiny degree of risk and I make my own decisions. Don't know about you lot, but I want to live a bit, before I die.

There's your cruncher, you are a responsible adult. This was an 11 year old girl and popular to what seems to be modern conventional thinking 11 year olds should not be left to their own devices all day in the modern world, there's a difference between giving a kid their independence and being irresponsible.

Having said that I completely agree with what you said.
 
As things stand, now isn't the right time to go pointing the finger at anyone. It's a very unfortunate accident. Sometimes on this kind of ride, the knee jerk instinct when you see a wave is to stand up to move away from it, I've done it myself a lot of times. Thoughts go out to everyone involved. :(
 
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