Staying safe
The standards, inspection regimes and the two incidents everyone in the industry knows by name.The rules, the checkers and the reasons a lifeguard says "wait!"
The rule books
Engineers have written big rule books that say exactly how a slide must be built and looked after. America's is called ASTM F2376; Europe's is EN 1069.Standard Practice for Classification, Design, Manufacture, Construction and Operation of Water Slide Systems, first published 2006 and now at F2376-24, with revisions in progress. It covers the flume, water circulation, start platform, supports, vehicles and termination system, and excludes residential slides, log flumes, constant-elevation lazy rivers and inflatables (those are F2374). About 35 US states incorporate ASTM F24 standards by reference.
The rules cover the flume, the water, the stairs, the rafts and the pool at the bottom. Bouncy inflatable slides have their own rule book.
The slide checkers
Every year, special inspectors climb all over the slides, check every bolt and ride them, before the park is allowed to open.Every year, special inspectors climb all over the slides, check every bolt and ride them, before the park is allowed to open.
In Germany, a group called TÜV does this. In America each state has its own checkers; some states check every month.
What hurts people most?
It's not the slides! Doctors found that most water park injuries come from slipping on wet floors. So: walk, don't run!A Turkish emergency-department study (2005-06, 73 water-park patients) found 31.5% were hurt on slides, 21.9% in pools and 46.6% slipping on wet decks; head, spinal and facial injuries each made up about a fifth. Two-thirds were male, mean age 24. In other words, the deck is more dangerous than the flume.
Slide clubs and prizes
Water park people have their own clubs: the World Waterpark Association and IAAPA. Every year they give prizes for the best new slides.Water park people have their own clubs: the World Waterpark Association and IAAPA. Every year they give prizes for the best new slides.
The Golden Ticket Awards are like the Oscars for water parks. Schlitterbahn won best park 27 years in a row until Volcano Bay won in 2025.
What happened on Verrückt
In 2016 a raft on the world's tallest slide bounced up and a 10-year-old boy called Caleb was killed. It was very sad, and it changed the rules.Designed in-house by Jeff Henry and John Schooley without a formal engineering process. On 7 August 2016, 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was killed when his raft went airborne and struck the overhead netting hoops; two women in the raft suffered facial fractures, and at least 13 earlier injuries had been reported. Schlitterbahn, operations director Tyler Miles, Henry and Schooley were indicted in March 2018 (Henry and Schooley for second-degree murder); Judge Robert Burns dismissed all charges on 22 February 2019 for grand-jury irregularities, including the use of a Travel Channel dramatisation as evidence. The Schwab family settled for about US$20 m. The ride came down between November 2018 and January 2019, the park closed and was demolished in 2021. Kansas passed a tougher Amusement Ride Act effective 1 July 2017 requiring annual qualified inspections and injury reporting.
Investigators found the slide had been built without proper engineering checks. After that, the state of Kansas made a law that every ride must be inspected by qualified experts every year. The slide was taken down in 2018. Today, new slides are tested far more carefully because of Caleb.
What happened on the Cannonball Loop
The straight-up loop slide was so bumpy that riders got bloody noses and lost teeth. It was closed after one month.The full-vertical looping body slide ran for about a month in 1985 before New Jersey regulators closed it. Riders came out with bloody noses, back injuries and missing teeth; a hatch was added to pull out anyone stuck at the bottom of the loop, and staff hosed riders down first to reduce friction. It is the cautionary tale behind the AquaLoop's tilted loop.
Engineers learned that loops have to be tilted, not straight up. That lesson made today's AquaLoop possible.
Slide rules for YOU
Wait for "go". One at a time. Arms crossed, legs together. No glasses or jewellery. Feet first unless it's a mat. And always listen to the lifeguard.Minimum heights, weight windows, one rider or raft in the flume at a time, arms crossed and legs together on speed slides, no glasses or jewellery, lifeguards at dispatch and catch pool, daily pre-opening walk-throughs and an annual third-party inspection where the law requires it. Most operators also log every dispatch on the big rides.