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Drayton Manor Park - Splash Canyon Incident

I remember (can't remember exactly when, It was sometime between the late 80;s or during the 90's) there was a death on one of the water rides at Alton Towers when a male member of staff fell off the turntable into the water, I can't 100% remember if it was the flume or rapids, but I always thought that it was on the rapids
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Intamin been building Rapids rides since 1979. This is the 1st recorded death on this type of ride.
I think the ride will now stay closed for the remaining of this season and if the H&S make Drayton Manor put better safety measures into place then all other Intamin Rapids will be forced to as well.
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Dave said:
There was a death on an Intamin Rapids at Parc Astrix
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And Roaring Rapids at Six Flags Over Texas. One in China as well, I think. This isn't new, unfortunately.
 
RoyJess said:
I remember (can't remember exactly when, It was sometime between the late 80;s or during the 90's) there was a death on one of the water rides at Alton Towers when a male member of staff fell off the turntable into the water, I can't 100% remember if it was the flume or rapids, but I always thought that it was on the rapids
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My uncle did say when the Rapids first opened at Alton Towers they were more faster. He said 1 boat Capsized and a lad got trapped underneath the boat and drowned.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
My uncle did say when the Rapids first opened at Alton Towers they were more faster. He said 1 boat Capsized and a lad got trapped underneath the boat and drowned.
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There is no way they could be faster. The ride has to run with 3 pumps else the low level of water can potentially make sending boats around unsafe. The speed of the ride is also determined by the gradients in the track. Not the pumps. The gradient has never been altered or adjusted. Even so, turning pumps on and off like some rapids with less obstacles along the ride have done in the past, would only increase or decrease the flow rate of the water and not the velocity, as the velocity is determied by the track gradients and cannot really be adjusted without major modifications to the track.

Even then, with major modifications to the track, the water velocity would be very similar because the total elevation change along the whole ride would be the same. As the water would still rise by the same amount from the end of the ride back to the station, giving it exactly the same amount of potential energy regardless of changes along the track.
 
The boat that capsized was at Thorpe, and the lad didn't drown, he's very much still alive today, allbeit missing an ear.
 
Evha's uncle Syed Alam, 47, said:

'If she fell into the water and tried to walk out, she was in there for a good few minutes. Staff should have seen her and done something'.

Looks like this may possibly be the way it might go then IF there is going to be any legal action in future. Some suggestion there that staff were not quick enough to respond. We don't know the exact circumstances and the relative may be commenting on hearsay, so it is what it is really.
 
A lot of people are saying that they should have seen it happen and e-stopped the ride but, as has been mentioned before, the pumps would take a while to shut down and boats would still flow, and they would have to wait until boats were in particular sections before stopping it to avoid the risk of boats capsizing.
 
The only thing I can think people may have expected IF any of this is true, and that anyone not on the ride had seen anything, is that that staff could have either thrown in a buoyancy aid or even risked their own lives jumping in the water to protect the girl.
 
So, as expected, it's the response to the incident that's behind the legal action and not the fact she fell in.
 
You can see it now, H&S will mean that the boats will operate on a one out one in procedure lol
 
Thing is, how quickly would a staff member be able to access the kid if say they fell out right down the other end of the ride going into the tunnel?

You can cry foul of poor response, but considering that the op is looking at 10-20 boats on it there's an element of chance that they're doing their job but don't notice one screen for ages... 5 minutes as a response time (from incident to staff arrival) would be likely and even then the kid could've been dead in 5 seconds, and no staff member can prevent that...
 
Does anybody know what ride closures are still happening at the moment? Planning a trip Saturday and wanted to know what's open/closed.
 
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