Australia - 4 people dead on Dreamworld's Thunder River Rapids ride, Gold Coast, 2016

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Dreamworld has since mounted a defence of its safety standards in response to intense scrutiny from the Australian Workers Union, which claim it had warned about problems as recently as three weeks ago.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...visits-Dreamworld-memorial.html#ixzz4OM6mlleQ
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[h=1]A helicopter crashed in the Dreamworld car park[/h]
June 2009.


number of reports had been made since November 2014.

It was also revealed that the owner of Dreamworld has been sued for almost $2million over the past six years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...visits-Dreamworld-memorial.html#ixzz4OM7mOJOH
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[h=2]fDreamworld theme park in Queensland, Australia, to remain shut until after funerals of victims killed in ride accident, park official says - 7News

Ardent Leisure (formerly Macquarie Leisure Trust[SUP][4][/SUP]) is an Australian-based leisurecompany which owns and operates a leisure portfolio of over 100 assets across Australia, New Zealand and the United States.[SUP][5][/SUP] It is most known for its operation of the Dreamworldtheme park and the WhiteWater World water park on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.[SUP][6]


[/SUP]
RevenueA$350.4m
11px-Decrease2.svg.png
(2010)[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP]
Operating income
A$78.8m
11px-Decrease2.svg.png
(2010)[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP]
Net income
A$90.8m
Total assetsA$500m
11px-Increase2.svg.png
(2010)[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP]
Number of employees
3279

April 2015 Deborah Thomas, former editor of Cleo and other magazines, was appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ardent Leisure.[SUP][[/SUP]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardent_Leisure





-helicopter-crashed-in-the-dreamworld-car-park/7974550


[/h]
 
With past near fatal tragedies on this particular ride at Dreamworld now emerging in MSM, its a disgrace that Dreamworld didn't seem to take prior accidents seriously.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ries-revealed-doomed-Thunder-Rapids-Ride.html
Ms Watson said just months ago, friends of hers were involved in a similar incident to the one that led to the death of four people on Tuesday.
'They were flipped under water and got stuck on the conveyor belt,' she wrote.
'They almost drowned and suffered concussions, were lucky to be alive (and) all Dreamworld did was call an Ambulance and made them sign something.
'The ride remained open and now this has happened it's no surprise,' the post ended.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...doomed-Thunder-Rapids-Ride.html#ixzz4OMH9FVvY
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Lots of folks, all over the web, wondering what happened too."where did they land" being the most common, as people struggle to understand, want to know if more could have been done ect... A couple of comments from Reddit sort of mirrored a couple of my own questions

"The first craft was jammed at the station already before the flip occurred. The emergency button should have already been triggered at that point."

"My biggest question is for how long the conveyor belt was still active after the boat tipped. I want to know why the staff working on the platform at that moment didn't activate the emergency stop the moment they saw a boat getting stuck. Or at the very least as they saw the other boat tipping. That conveyor belt is very slow-moving. By the looks of the blood-covers it looks like someone had taken a trip the entire way around before it was all stopped. How long must that have taken? A whole minute? A single press of a button or communication with control could have prevented this. I call negligence."

I have to say, I do agree. It certainly seems like they had no real policy in place for an emergency such as this. No preventative measures for a potentially deadly crash? Particularly when it was a known risk, on this particular ride?

Was it just that it was thought to be so remote of a chance that anything like this would ever occur, that people were lulled into complacency?

These poor ,poor families. This is just about the worst thing I can imagine, for my little girl, ( who is 11) to have to live through. It's heartbreaking to imagine, and these folks have to live this. There has got to be a better way to run these rides. This should never be a possibility.
 
I think this red cross donation has a tax write-off angle. Why not just hand it to the victims themselves - . Donations to any charity have administrative silliness that eats up a lot of it. Wirte some checks to the families moo

We have heard that staff were pressured to load rides fast. If that were the mindsight - why would rafts getting stuck all the time , which would inherently lead to slowing down the whole process just ignored ti seems. Stuck empty rafts don't speed things along


moo
 
CARIIS said:
I think this red cross donation has a tax write-off angle. Why not just hand it to the victims themselves - . Donations to any charity have administrative silliness that eats up a lot of it. Wirte some checks to the families moo

We have heard that staff were pressured to load rides fast. If that were the mindsight - why would rafts getting stuck all the time , which would inherently lead to slowing down the whole process just ignored ti seems. Stuck empty rafts don't speed things along


moo
Click to expand...

Yes Cariis, I don't understand the reason behind leaving some rafts empty if staff had to fill them quickly & keep the ride moving.
You would think if staff had to keep people getting on the ride at a fast pace then all rafts would be occupied.
Obviously there was a reason why some were left empty.
 
Ignored reports to Dreamworld by concerned patrons.
Why have Dreamworld just ignored these people's near fatalities & real concerns?
And for Dreamworld to not even have the decency to contact & acknowledge those that reported their serious concerns.
If Dreamworld had of taken reports from concerned patrons seriously, then imo, these shocking fatalities could of been avoided.

http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/...ns-emerge-in-wake-of-dreamworld-tragedy/?cs=7
Gold Coast nurse Teresa, who asked for her surname to be withheld, suffered bruises and rope burn on her arm when she was forced to catch her son mid-air at the end of the ride on March 19.
"There is a point in the ride ... just before you go up the conveyor belt where you hit a rougher part of the water and you get a jolt," she said. "Sometimes that jolt makes you bounce off your seat. On this day we hit the water so hard that it forced my son up from his seat and his seat belt became undone. My friend and I caught him mid-air and put him back in his seat."
She sent a complaint to Dreamworld the next day but never heard back.
 
I find it weird that they don't have an actual height requirement for this ride. I mean, I think they have one to ride alone. But if you're with a parent you just have to be at least 2 years old. That is so freaking weird to me. Every place I've been to with a ride like this has a height requirement.

Not that it has anything to do with this accident, of course. But it just speaks volumes to me about the standards of this park.
 
There's a ride at Kings Island that's similar and I've been on it multiple times. It never needed a "buffer". But it was Velcro straps so if it flips you can get out from under it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Tssiemer said:
There's a ride at Kings Island that's similar and I've been on it multiple times. It never needed a "buffer". But it was Velcro straps so if it flips you can get out from under it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

This one had velcro too. Posted a video where on a bump it flew open on a girl.

That makes sense, we all know velcro in a dry area being endless "used" loses its holding ability , in a wet environment .......

From alll we have heard I bet the belt are old ---The Velcro and drowning is great but I would think the belts would have to be changed A LOT to have menaingful safety merit
 
symbah said:
Yes Cariis, I don't understand the reason behind leaving some rafts empty if staff had to fill them quickly & keep the ride moving.
You would think if staff had to keep people getting on the ride at a fast pace then all rafts would be occupied.
Obviously there was a reason why some were left empty.
Click to expand...

Ha! when i read that I thought BS!! Employee just blowing guest off moo

Being a curious person I would have asked for an explanation, like that makes no sense whatsoever !

If, in light of the days events they were doing a test a run two things! One ! an empty raft is not an accurate test to see if there is enough water for it to run safely - its missing a thousand pounds, which has kinda a huge impact on floating objects!!!

2--If that is what they were doing what is the use of letting an empty one go, and without waiting or even paying attention , apparently, start loading up potential victims without waiting for a stupid fake run.

iMy conclusion, If I was operating it, if this was the case , would have been ride closed - an empty raft is stuck right over there !!

Amazon puts empty boxes in its system-- yeh right !

Does not matter now, but can't help but ponder if a more experienced operator would have made a difference, and how the term "operator " can even be applied- from what we have heard thus far she is the only one there.

So is there an emergency stop button right ON the platform, or is it like a little control room - how could she even get to it if she is facing the other way?

I have visualized if I was doing it, my attention would not be on "what's coming", if i had two rafts in the loading area to be addressing.

If it is, in fact, that only one operator was there for the ride, that in and of itself is huge. Like I get one operator for a Ferris wheel! Any ride that has staff having to be actively involved in loading and unloading -- seems pretty clear that that is what that individual would be "doing".


If you visualize the wheels there is really no way one person could really check if everyone was belted in - without actually stepping aboard EACH cart, just cause of design no?
 
If you look at this video of TRRR, at the end it shows very clearly, the exit process. There is one staff person watching riders as they exit the rafts. That is not good enough imo. ( Say someone fell in the water. What is that ONE staff person going to do?) Kali has about seven, and there are several more behind those, standing where people will enter the platform. This video also appears to show one raft gently bump another raft, just ahead of it in the exit bay:
https://youtu.be/qleliuQr_vc
 
Safeguard said:
If you look at this video of TRRR, at the end it shows very clearly, the exit process. There is one staff person watching riders as the exit the rafts. That is not good enough imo. ( Say someone fell in the water. What is that ONE staff person going to do?) Kali has about seven, and the are several more behind those, standing where people will enter the platform. This video also appears to show one raft gently bump another raft, just ahead of it in the exit bay:
https://youtu.be/qleliuQr_vc
Click to expand...

Even though I've been on that ride dozens of times, I was never aware of the danger. But just watching that conveyor belt going over the tracks, I can imagine how they died. It is brutal, I'm so sorry and sad, these good people died, it shouldn't have happened.
 
PrimeSuspect said:
Even though I've been on that ride dozens of times, I was never aware of the danger. But just watching that conveyor belt going over the tracks, I can imagine how they died. It is brutal, I'm so sorry and sad, these good people died, it shouldn't have happened.
Click to expand...

Yeah. That video put things in perspective for me as well. ( with the exception of the kids. I still have no idea what happened to them. There are even a few reports that a girl was plucked out of the raft at the last second). I am finding it a bit odd, that no one seems to want to say, specifically, what happened to those two kids.

The conveyor was old, should have been replaced by the safer ones they have now. Compare Kali River ride:
kali.jpg
No one could fall through those. Much safer See it in motion here:
[video=youtube;ws6iNJ3pBrg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws6iNJ3pBrg[/video]
 
Looking into the design of this ride & paraphrasing from the link below, Swiss Co Intamin first developed it in the 1980's. But Dreamworld didn't use Intamin to build their Thunder River Rapids, instead opting for in house / contract engineering co's. The rafts were a copy of Intamin's rafts but are attributed to Sydney Master Glass Industries.

At Dreamworld, modifications have been made over the last 20yrs to the conveyer belt lift hill by taking away most of the wooden slats that support the rafts as they go up the hill at the end of the ride.

http://www.parkz.com.au/article/201..._previously_modified_Thunder_River_Rapids_con
Thunder River Rapids, as it appears as far back as 2008 until present, features fewer wooden slats than most similar rides. Two spacer blocks of wood exist where it appears full slats would once have sat, leaving large voids in the conveyor belt.
 
symbah said:
Looking into the design of this ride & paraphrasing from the link below, Swiss Co Intamin first developed it in the 1980's. But Dreamworld didn't use Intamin to build their Thunder River Rapids, instead opting for in house / contract engineering co's. The rafts were a copy of Intamin's rafts but are attributed to Sydney Master Glass Industries.

At Dreamworld, modifications have been made over the last 20yrs to the conveyer belt lift hill by taking away most of the wooden slats that support the rafts as they go up the hill at the end of the ride.

http://www.parkz.com.au/article/201..._previously_modified_Thunder_River_Rapids_con
Thunder River Rapids, as it appears as far back as 2008 until present, features fewer wooden slats than most similar rides. Two spacer blocks of wood exist where it appears full slats would once have sat, leaving large voids in the conveyor belt.
Click to expand...

Damn! This accident may survivable, if not for those voids. That is too freaken sad. Such a small accommodation, could have possibly prevented so many lives lost and ruined.
 
symbah said:
Looking into the design of this ride & paraphrasing from the link below, Swiss Co Intamin first developed it in the 1980's. But Dreamworld didn't use Intamin to build their Thunder River Rapids, instead opting for in house / contract engineering co's. The rafts were a copy of Intamin's rafts but are attributed to Sydney Master Glass Industries.

At Dreamworld, modifications have been made over the last 20yrs to the conveyer belt lift hill by taking away most of the wooden slats that support the rafts as they go up the hill at the end of the ride.

http://www.parkz.com.au/article/201..._previously_modified_Thunder_River_Rapids_con
Thunder River Rapids, as it appears as far back as 2008 until present, features fewer wooden slats than most similar rides. Two spacer blocks of wood exist where it appears full slats would once have sat, leaving large voids in the conveyor belt.
Click to expand...

Link does not work but a fascinating post TY!
 
PrimeSuspect said:
Even though I've been on that ride dozens of times, I was never aware of the danger. But just watching that conveyor belt going over the tracks, I can imagine how they died. It is brutal, I'm so sorry and sad, these good people died, it shouldn't have happened.
Click to expand...

On the last few videos in this thread, I counted 5 turquoise staff shirts. I keep waiting to here that there was more staff there than a kid on her first day running the whole thing

It blows my mind
 
This piece so hit me. Over the last several days, I have tried to understand why this has been so devasting.

I have dreamed the recreation animations. I think trying to find some reassurance that death was instant, but that it is not how it plays out.

I wish I could make it more instant, and over, and done, and painless, and bloodless, and not filled with screams of horror., and slow, and scary, and mortifying,and less anger fueled.

But that does not happen........................................... I have tried - but it does not happen......................

This piece helped me-------------- terrific writing imo

Why has this tragedy — among all of them — shot through to our hearts?

That’s what makes of this tragedy so especially hard to deal with. It’s taken so many families and torn them apart.

Kim Dorsett lost two of her children.

The Araghi family lost one of theirs.

Ebony and Evie Goodchild lost their mother and uncle.

David Godchild lost his wife

Kieran and Isla Low lost their mother. Nobody could have heard her and not felt hit by a lightning bolt of grief.

Matthew Low lost his wife.

The family that was Luke Dorsett and Roozi Araghi is gone.

Kim Dorsett’s words after the tragedy were “It truly breaks my heart to know that my eight-month-old is never going to get to know her mum.”


All these family tables will have an empty chair

I’M supposed to write about economics and business, but the events of this week make that very hard.

The tragedy at Dreamworld has been so enormous and the effect of it so widespread.

Part of the reason is it happened in a theme park, which makes the awfulness even clearer.

And indeed watching the news at first was like seeing some awful TV drama unfold. But soon it became far more personal than that.

The effect can be overwhelming.

But amid the grief, horror and confusion are the beginnings of recovery.

There were early reports David Goodchild’s wallet had been stolen in the chaos. Those reports, happily, were wrong.

Dreamworld can be part of the healing process itself if it opens up and tries to deal with what happened honestly.

The initial plan to swiftly open up again after a single memorial day seemed hasty.

The classic first stage of grief is denial, and possibly Dreamworld executives were in that stage.

 They can’t swiftly go back to how things were.

None of us can.

I also can’t help thinking of the newlyweds that invited Luke, Kate and Roozi to their wedding.

They were the reason those families traveled to Queensland.

Their wedding anniversary will, every year, be sad as well as happy.

that’s the legacy of an event like this. It lasts a long time.

The pain and the memory surges and ebbs for years.

It is not about reversing the pain. Nobody can put things back the way they were

 This can’t be papered over.........................................................................................................................





http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/the-reason-the-dreamworld-tragedy-is-so-horrifying/news-story/5348a1cfde2cae4d3fece08b08fdc515

 
CARIIS said:
Link does not work but a fascinating post TY!
Click to expand...

Oops, sorry about the link not working. I just went back to try to fix it & can't seem to find it now. Strange :thinking:
 
Dangerously safe, the amusement park ride is a rite of childhood that lingers through most lives, .............

the Dreamworld tragedy has exposed the dark side of manufactured fun.
............s destroyed the industry's never-ending blue-sky



d Dreamworld's celebrity CEO Deborah Thomas became the issue for media wanting a famous face to slap.
................\

.......indications suggesting the four died for want of piece of updated equipment costing just a few hundred dollars – a limit switch that maintains distance between rafts on the ride which is thought to have failed.


............Tuesday was a busy day at Dreamworld. At 11am perfect sunshine and mild spring-time warmth greeted families streaming through the entrance towards the park's 22 rides. By 2pm, lines were predictably long.................
On the Thunder River Rapids Ride, considered one of the park's tamest.............


.....iInitially it took time for news to filter through before the park closed. David Turner, covered in mud, was ushered to a nearby police station. Mathew Low rushed to hospital alongside his son Kieran, who was released on Wednesday..


Dreamworld went into mourning: flags were lowered to half-mast, and the park's front wall and lawn became a sea of bouquets and melted candles.

"What comes out in most investigations is the 'holes in the Swiss cheese' model. It's not one thing that caused it. There could be some underlying fault that lay dormant for some time, then something else has happened – it's quite often three or four things."

Fairfax Media has been told it broke down three times on Tuesday, ...............

Over 100 pages of incident reports released under Freedom of Information by Queensland's Office of Industrial Relations during the week painted a grim picture of Dreamworld's safety standards. (I am trying to find them anyone?)


"The engineering department at Dreamworld did not produce any evidence of having a Quality Management System in place
................

reported saying Dreamworld tried to pressure him into changing the 12 non-compliance ratings to compliance ratings.


..................2012 an audit log noted that several rides and water slides were in "dire need" of fixing, rust was visible and falling into pools, there were major leaks and cracks on slides and tape was used to cover some rides.............

"In my opinion, Dreamworld targets employees who speak up," an unnamed employee said


................half a dozen lawsuits with most settled out of court.


, Dreamworld has been accused of using inexperienced and inattentive teenagers to operate rides.

The incongruity of tragedy at a theme park seems stark, but more people around the world die or are maimed in amusement park accidents than are killed or injured by sharks.

But risk is part of the fun.


Queensland University of Technology academics Linda Gilmore and Marilyn Campbell say forget scary movies and books – theme park rides topped the list of scary experiences for children:


http://www.smh.com.au/national/chea...nted-dreamworld-accident-20161028-gscwei.html"

 
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