At 169 feet tall, Verrückt was the tallest waterslide in the world. Riders plummeted down the nearly vertical 17-story chute—taller than Niagara Falls—at speeds up to 70 miles per hour. German for “insane,” Verrückt was designed to challenge the laws of physics. Visitors flocked to Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas, to experience its thrill. That is, until August 7, 2016, when the raft that 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was riding went airborne and hit a metal pole supporting a safety net, resulting in his decapitation and instant death. Nathan Truesdell, a filmmaker from nearby Missouri, heard about the devastating incident on the news. “My first thought was that it must have been a freak accident—what a horrible, horrible story,” Truesdell told me. “But once I took a closer look, I started to realize how complicated this story really was, and how this could have happened to anyone who went down that slide.” The story, it turned out, was one of gross negligence, lax state regulations, and the consequences of hubris. Truesdell’s chilling short documentary The Water Slide, premiering on The Atlantic today, uses news and promotional footage to depict the ill-conceived project and its tragic fallout. In 2012, the Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry, together with the senior designer John Schooley, fast-tracked Verrückt’s construction to coincide with an appearance on a reality TV show about amusement parks. (They were also gunning for a Guinness World Record.) Although they had built rides before, neither Henry nor Schooley had a background in mechanical engineering. And according to state law, they didn’t need those credentials to deem their own ride safe—unlike in the neighboring state of Missouri, water parks in Kansas do not require inspections by a state agency. As chance would have it, Schwab’s father was a Kansas state representative. On the day of Caleb’s accident, the Schwab family had been visiting the water park for Elected Official Day, an annual promotion from Schlitterbahn that offered free admission to Kansas elected officials and their families. “There wasn't a lot of science or ride engineering involved in the testing and design,” Truesdell said. “They were sending sandbags down and basically hoping that they didn't fly off of the slide. The netting that ultimately ended up killing the child was added to prevent the rafts from flying off of the slide completely.” In the film, Schooley speaks to a reporter after having tested the ride himself. “That was really exciting because we truly didn’t know whether we were going to survive it or not,” he says. “A ride might be scary, but you figure that they have it figured out. We didn’t know whether we had it figured out or not.” Henry and Schooley were ultimately indicted on charges of aggravated battery, aggravated endangerment of a child, interference with law enforcement, and involuntary manslaughter. Henry faced a charge of second-degree murder. The state alleged that the two men had rushed forward with the ride’s construction without the technical expertise required to design a properly functioning waterslide, skipped “fundamental steps in the design process,” and relied “almost entirely on crude trial-and-error methods” for safety testing. According to court documents, a team of experts who inspected the ride after Caleb's death found “physical evidence that indicated that other rafts had gone airborne and collided with the overhead hoops and netting before the fatality.” What’s more, on July 3, 2014—one week before the ride’s grand opening—an engineering firm that was hired to perform accelerometer tests on Verrückt’s rafts issued a damning report that “guaranteed that rafts would occasionally go airborne in a manner that could severely injure or kill the occupants.” Other documents cited evidence of dozens of Schlitterbahn customers who had been injured on the ride. Schlitterbahn allegedly buried or downplayed these reports. In February, a judge dismissed the charges against Henry and Schooley. The water park is now closed, and the slide has been demolished. “We are good at sending thoughts and prayers,” Truesdell quipped. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to .
 Aerial photo of Schlitterbahn Kansas City in September 2018 Schlitterbahn Waterpark Kansas City was a water park that opened on July 15, 2009 in Kansas City, Kansas. It was announced in September 2005 by Schlitterbahn Waterparks. The 370-acre (1.5 km2), $750 million development included a nearly 40-acre (160,000 m2) waterpark, which is Schlitterbahn's fourth waterpark and its first outside Texas. Groundbreaking took place September 18, 2007 on the land formerly occupied by the Wyandotte County Fairgrounds and the Unified Government courthouse annex, across Interstate 435 from the Kansas Speedway and Village West. History[edit]Phase 1 included the opening of 12 water attractions, 3 restaurants, and 2 shops. Of those attractions, three were purchased from the former Geauga Lake amusement park in Ohio.[1] Phase 2, named Schlitterbahn Vacation Village Resort was originally planned to include over 1,000 hotel rooms, a Scheels sporting goods store, and a Riverwalk area consisting of shops and restaurants on 300 acres surrounding the water park. Those plans were stalled and eventually abandoned due to the ongoing Great Recession.[2] An expansion of the water park opened on April 30, 2011, with six new attractions. Verrückt and accident[edit]In November 2012, Schlitterbahn Waterparks announced plans for the world's tallest and fastest water slide, Verrückt.[3] Designed by Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry, Verrückt was a three-person raft slide with an uphill section. The initial drop was a 17-story plunge with a five-story uphill section. At 168 feet 7 inches (51.38 m),[4] the starting point was taller than Niagara Falls[5] and reached a maximum speed of 65 miles per hour (105 km/h). It opened on July 10, 2014, after multiple delays.[6] In August 2016, 10-year old Caleb Schwab was killed while riding Verrückt. The death occurred when the raft he was in went airborne at the lower bump and struck a metal support of the netting, decapitating him.[7][8] The other two passengers, both women, were injured in the incident — one suffered a broken jaw, while the other suffered a facial bone fracture and needed stitches.[9] In the immediate aftermath, the park was closed pending an inspection.[7][10] Although the park reopened three days later, the ride remained closed.[9][11][12] An investigation found that Caleb, who weighed 74 pounds (34 kg), had been allowed to sit in the front of the raft, rather than between the two women accompanying him — one weighed 275 pounds (125 kg), while the other weighed 197 pounds (89 kg).[13] This led to an uneven weight distribution that contributed to the raft going airborne, despite the cumulative weight of 546 pounds (248 kg), less than the maximum recommended weight of 550 pounds (250 kg).[13] Engineers who inspected the ride also commented that the ride's netting, used in areas where riders travel up to 70 miles per hour (110 km/h), "posed its own hazard because a rider moving at high speeds could easily lose a limb if they hit it".[14] Their findings revealed that the use of the metal brace and netting system in the design,[15] along with the use of hook and loop straps to restrain the riders,[16] went against guidelines set by ASTM F-24 Committee on Amusement Ride and Devices.[17] According to the guidelines, Verrückt should have incorporated the use of a rigid over-the-shoulder restraint for riders,[16] and an upstop mechanism to prevent the rafts from going airborne.[18] Aftermath[edit]In 2018, the last operating season of the park, four attractions remained closed throughout the season after an audit by regulators found that each did not comply with the Kansas Amusement Ride Act.[19] Demolition of Verrückt began on November 1, 2018. The park did not open for the 2019 season. On June 13, 2019, Cedar Fair agreed to buy Schlitterbahn's two parks in New Braunfels and Galveston for a price of $261 million. Additionally, Cedar Fair had the option for up to 120 days to buy the Kansas City location "for an additional $6 million".[20] Cedar Fair did not pursue purchasing the property within those 120 days and the park remained standing but not operating. On November 6, 2020, Homefield LLC signed an agreement with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas to fund the redevelopment of the former Schlitterbahn lot for $90 million into an amateur sports complex. Plans called for the total demolition of the remaining Schlitterbahn structures, which was to begin before July 2021.[21] The adjacent Wyandotte County Courthouse Annex building was demolished beginning in February 2021,[22] and the demolition of Schlitterbahn itself was completed before September. References[edit]
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