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Comment by teraflop | Hacker News Reader

The full indictment [1] is well worth reading. The most relevant sections for HN, in my opinion:

> 35. [Designer Jeffrey] HENRY compared the construction of Verrückt to an arms race against rival waterparks.

> 37. HENRY admitted that he was ignoring established industry safety standards because he felt he could redefine those standards with his own achievements. While describing his vision of how Verrückt would change the industry, HENRY explained, "[W]e're going to set the standards up, and set the education up, and we're gonna redefine many of the definables that have been defined in the industry that we couldn't find good reasons for."

Also check out paragraphs 85-89 for some incredibly unethical behavior on the part of one of Schlitterbahn's attorneys.

[1]: https://www.wycocourtks.org/uploads/4/4/1/2/4412070/2018-03-...

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Holy shit. This is some Action Park [1] level irresponsibility here.

A few other horrifying details:

* Riders were restrained by Velcro straps. These frequently came loose. One rider broke several toes after his restraint came undone during a ride, forcing him to dig his feet into the corners of the raft.

* The brake system on the ride was completely nonfunctional when the boy was killed, and had been that way for several weeks. Evidence suggests that the park planned to delay maintenance until the park closed for the season.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Park -- aka "Class Action Park"

aka "Traction Park". Went there a couple times in the 80's. That place rocked, but it was, uh, a little unsafe.

My dad rode a cliffhanger type of slide at Action Park in the mid 80s. It had a plastic covering about 1/2 way down so you couldn't "fall off" the slide.

I'm still amazed to this day he did it because he's afraid of heights. It was easily 50' high. Fortunately, the only downside was it was like getting an enormous enema.

Those sled things that went down the concrete track, everyone has scars from those. Great memories but not remotely safe.

Great Adventure (Six Flags) wasn't as much fun but we all came back in one piece.

My dad recalls one summer where three people died on coasters and another incident where someone lit a (very unsafe as per fire code) haunted house on fire.

It's gotten considerably better since then though when I stopped going they were in the middle of a serious nickel-and-diming phase.

Fond memories of childhood visits to a local "flume" ride, essentially a long concrete-lined ditch dug in a switchback pattern down a big hillside. Painted to make it slick, and they pumped a continuous stream of water all along it. You rode it by sitting or lying on foam mats, about 3x4 feet in size.

A ton of fun, you could get going pretty fast and you definitely wanted to have your legs crossed when you hit the pool at the bottom. Never heard of anyone getting hurt though, other than some mild abrasions if you slipped off the mat -- the concrete wasn't totally smooth. The curves were pretty steeply banked and the most you could really do if you went over the side was end up in underbrush.

Terrible that adults who should know better are making rides without apparent regard for safety of the (mostly) kids that will be riding them. Those elevated trough rides do worry me, they really need to be fully enclosed anywhere there is any chance of going airborne or over the edge.

I have memories myself of a summer camp with a nice long slide that was waxed with the insides of McDonalds cups. You rode down on a burlap sack and if for some reason you touched the slide itself you would get a gigantic friction burn (ask me how I know!).

Hmm… The indictment mentions that normal engineering practice would include an “upstop”, which is apparently a wheel or other part of the vehicle that rides under the track [1] to prevent it from going airborne. In addition, it says the restraint should have been a “Class 5 restraint consisting of rigid overhead shoulder bars with a locking lap restraint”, which would effectively prevent the rider from going airborne. So it seems like if both of those things had been present, designed properly, and of course tested and maintained, that would provide a high degree of safety without needing to fully enclose the track.

[1] https://www.quora.com/How-do-roller-coasters-stay-on-the-tra...

> you definitely wanted to have your legs crossed when you hit the pool at the bottom.

Why? This is a serious question, since I am not that experienced in crazy water slides.

Because otherwise the water slams into your crotch. Crossing your feet or keeping them pressed together directs the water away.

Because otherwise you strike water at high speed with your unprotected crotch area.

>Great Adventure (Six Flags) wasn't as much fun but we all came back in one piece.

Central Jersey dude here. Yeah I did the Action Park alpine slide. And saw that water slide your dad mentioned (I opted for the smaller one).

But not everybody was so lucky at GA. I was there the day a girl died falling off Lightning Loops. And the family with us also happened to be there previously the day a fire broke out in the Haunted House, killing several people.

In high school I volunteered at the local hospital. One of the patients was the guy who stood up on Scream Machine to impress his girlfriend and fell out.

Even more damning on the brake system was that the operators initially claimed to investigators that the brake system was only in place during testing. They had to find a visitor's GoPro footage to prove that the brake system was supposed to be there, but was missing.

The Dollop podcast had an excellent episode detailing the history of Action Park (infused with their normal humor/horror reparte) - http://thedollop.net/wp/episode-87-dollop/

Another particularly egregious bit:

> 61. In response to the Groves incident, MILES intercepted the incident reports which the lifeguards had written. MILES destroyed these written witness statements. MILES then forced the lifeguards to write coached statements which omitted any detail of how the injury had occurred. MILES then ordered the medical staff to alter their medical reports.

edit: The owner was arrested just today, so I had missed that.

Can someone explain why they are charging the 29 year old director of operations who started as a lifeguard and had no formal training or connection to engineering/design and not one of the designers or owners, both of which are mentioned in the indictment multiple times?

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me other than they needed to charge someone.

The father of the kid that died is a state legislator and he got a huge settlement.

Right. They settled for ~20 million shortly after it happened. The Kansas attorney general also took over the investigation.

Still not understanding why the criminal indictment isn't for the designer or owner who are mentioned several times...

One of them seems to have also been arrested: http://www.kansascity.com/news/article206886324.html

Thanks, I missed that this came out today. This is what I was expecting.

>Evidence suggests that the park planned to delay maintenance until the park closed for the season.

When a safety feature was out of service, they decided to keep running it. That sounds like a director of operations decison.

And much easier case to prove than design deficiency.

I think its likely that its an easier case to prove, but they are charging him with some things that take quite a high bar to prove.

For instance, the involuntary manslaughter charge is going to be hard to proof when the evidence that he was planning on going on the ride the same day is presented. They have to prove recklessness which includes proving the person knew their actions were likely to cause harm.

Also worth noting they are basically throwing the book at him with the number and severity of charges on the indictment.

Running it with a broken safety feature isn't recklessness? I think it is. Also gross negligence.

(IANAL, though. Legal definitions of those words may not match my intuitive understanding of them...)

Disclaimer: This isn't legal advice.

The legal definition of recklessness requires that the person know (or should know) that the ride is dangerous. Legally, it is more difficult to prove when that person took actions that suggest they did not think it was dangerous.

To your point about broken safety features:

One could potentially even argue that the brake isn't a safety feature. It could be there to help riders that are scared of going too fast to more easily control their speed, simply for their own enjoyment. I don't think that use of the brake would be required under normal operations and therefore, it could be argued that the brake wasn't a safety feature. I personally don't think it makes sense that a "safety" feature is optional and relies on the rider, but I could be wrong. The designers were certainly negligent in other ways....

Not sure if that follows or if it makes any more sense to you, but legally, its a potential argument.

>I personally don't think it makes sense that a "safety" feature is optional and relies on the rider, but I could be wrong.

While in general safety features can require a competent user, e.g. the brakes in your car, in the case of amusement park rides that allow children that does indeed not make sense.

But... I would argue that this is just evidence of substandard design of the speed control system. There is ample evidence of a history of injuries due to excessive speed.

AFAICT, the “brake” was a rough pad attached to the surface of the slide, designed to slow the raft as it crested a hill. It wasn’t a user-operable brake. See page 4 of the indictment.

[0] https://www.wycocourtks.org/uploads/4/4/1/2/4412070/2018-03-...

Prosecutors will often start with very serious charges, then lower them in exchange for cooperation against the people they are really after.

This is true, but I wish they did not overcharge to scare defendants into pleading guilty to lesser charges. Sometimes prosecutors go way overboard with this approach (think of Aaron Swartz). I don't see why the courts allow this practice.

> For instance, the involuntary manslaughter charge is going to be hard to proof when the evidence that he was planning on going on the ride the same day is presented.

Often the safety of something for a particular person depends on their knowledge of the danger. For example there is a board that is failing on my deck. It is possible that it could give way leading to someone twisting their ankle or even breaking a bone. Yet I walk on my deck everyday--because I know to avoid stepping on that board until I get around to learning how to fix it and doing so.

Maybe he knew the places where it was more dangerous than well designed and built similar rides, and what to do or not do at those places to minimize the risk?

> For instance, the involuntary manslaughter charge is going to be hard to proof when the evidence that he was planning on going on the ride the same day is presented. They have to prove recklessness which includes proving the person knew their actions were likely to cause harm.

Surf instructor sends novice who has never surfed before out to surf Teahupoo. In his defense, the instructor was planning on surfing it the same day.

Can one develop expertise in riding dangerous amusement rides?

Yep, being aware that people with low body weight were more likely to report incidents could give you confidence to ride knowing you had high body weight.

"For instance, the involuntary manslaughter charge is going to be hard to proof when the evidence that he was planning on going on the ride the same day is presented. "

I'm pretty sure you can get involuntary manslaughter for driving recklessly, crashing your car, and killing your passenger. Or failing to maintain your car properly, crashing it due to an avoidable failure, and killing your passenger.

If I'm correct and you can get inv. manslaughter when you're in the same vehicle as the victim, it shouldn't be too hard to prove when the person was only planning to be in the ride later.

One of the co-owners was arrested today.

http://fox4kc.com/2018/03/26/schlitterbahn-co-owner-arrested...

Edit: remove amp link

The owner was just arrested as well,[1] and I'd bet that more will follow. My guess is the director of operations will get a plea deal in exchange for testifying against the others.

[1] http://www.kansascity.com/news/article206886324.html

Yeah typically the defendant they want to testify (often the lowest-level, least-responsible defendant) is charged first. In exchange for a deal, that person will provide as much evidence as possible against everyone else.

It is interesting that this firm has an "owner" rather than a CEO and a board. It's my impression that executives and board members would be less likely to face criminal charges in this sort of situation.

Schlitterbahn is a private family-run business.

"Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry arrested in Texas on Verruckt-related charges"

http://www.kansascity.com/news/article206886324.html

As others have noted, there has been another arrest. The operations director was merely the first. So, the question then becomes why him first?

According to the article:

> As investigators were looking into the death of the boy, Caleb Schwab, in August 2016, Mr. Miles, then the operations director, hid or destroyed documents detailing injuries sustained by riders, the indictment said.

I'd guess that this might have something to do with it. Even if it turns out that no one did anything actually criminal in regards to the building and operation of the ride itself, destroying evidence to impede an investigation is criminal. The criminal charges for this are probably also easier to prove than the ones related to the ride itself.

Furthermore, even if it turns out there was nothing actually criminal in the operation of the ride, so that none of the owners or designers are guilty of anything, he can still go down for destroying evidence.

In short...he's potentially double screwed. So indict him first, point out that even if he gets off on the ride-related charges (which is plausible...he can try to argue that he is not an engineer, so he trusted the judgment of the engineers who designed and built the thing), they've got him on the destroying evidence thing. His only realistic hope, therefore, is to accept a deal. Tell him you really want to nail the owners and designers, and offer him a deal.

> that have been defined in the industry that we couldn't find good reasons for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton%27...

How on earth have I missed that encapsulation of a conservatism that is a good balance for liberalism (or progessivism)? When you can explain what that rule might have been good for, you can seriously discuss changing it.

That's what kills me about GOP deregulation. It's purely profit driven, without concern for actual effects. I'm okay with improving regulations. But that take time and effort and isn't amenable to the reckless clearcutting approach.

+1, definitely well worth reading. Paragraphs 85-89 seem like they come out of a prize-winning thriller, but every single paragraph in the indictment is also gripping.

Sounds eerily like some Silicon Valley startup founder.

> we're gonna redefine many of the definables that have been defined in the industry

What?

Whoa. That's disbarment-worthy.

Society has moved into a dangerous position of rewarding people for extreme risk taking, so long as it pans out. I'm not saying this guy wasn't responsible. He totally was, but things like this are going to keep happening the more we encourage disastrous risks.

They use to happen all the time before we started focusing on safety standards for cars. There's a great 99% Invisible episode about the shift from believing injury from car accidents was unavoidable/the fault of the driver to making cars safer in impacts:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/nut-behind-wheel/

Stories like this seem to be a step backwards. Regulation can sometimes hinder some industry (usually when one industry lobbies for it to keep competitors), but it also has an incredible track record of making things safer.

The solution is not stop encouraging people to take extreme risks, it's to stop encouraging them to take risk that put others, and not them, at risk (and punish them if they do so).

All of the great services and products we use today came from extreme risk taking, it's the corner stone of entrepreneurship.

I read that as meaning risks like "if my product isn't caught killing anyone in the next year, I'll be a billionaire!" type risks, not personal risks.

> Society has moved into a dangerous position [...]

> They use to happen all the time before we started focusing on safety standards [...]

Maybe it's seen a bit of a resurgence recently, but history (and the attendant selection bias) has always rewarded risk-takers whose risks paid off, while letting the rest die off-screen.

At the most basic level you have the people doing risky stunts for YouTube, etc, and getting killed. Like the woman who shot her boyfriend in the chest with a Desert Eagle, at his insistence, because he thought an encyclopedia volume would protect him.

Move fast and break things!

"things"

This is why most of us aren't real engineers. When real engineers are sloppy people die. When we are sloppy, our industry leaders defend it as being 'pragmatic'.

Its almost like completely different problems have completely different design constraints... There are plenty of "real" engineers who design stuff that have very little safety implications, such as optimizing electrical boards or minimizing costs in manufacturing.

Poor choice of example. "Electrical boards", aka PCBs, have a lot of safety requirements, and poorly designed ones are often implicated in electrical and battery fires.

Fair enough, I had trouble coming up with concrete examples. I do think there are plenty of engineering situations where safety isn't a major concern though.

It's Agile!

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