Child Dies at Kansas Water Park

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My thoughts and prayers are with the family of a ten year old boy who died Sunday at a water park in Kansas. The boy was on what is billed as "the world's tallest water slide" when the tragedy happened. Investigators are still determining exactly what happened, and as of right now very little details are known in the incident. What is known is that 3-4 riders, who must have a total weight of between 400-500 pounds, are strapped in to a raft before they are sent plummeting own a 168-foot drop. It is unknown at this time if the weight restriction or height restrictions were in force at the time of the tragedy. Have you ever had a near-tragic event happen to you at a theme park or water park? I have had one incident happen to me years ago, at a popular water park in the Orlando, Florida area. While at the water park, I went down one of those plumes with a near straight drop, that was followed by a series of "humps." It was on one of these humps that I went airborne a little too high, and somehow came down almost a little too far to the left, hitting the side of the plume and bouncing back into the slide. Had I even been a half-inch farther to the left, I would have for sure bounced out of the plume and plummeted to my death. After I got off the ride I notified one of the staff members of what had happened, and they shrugged it off like it was nothing. "It happens all the time" was what I was told. Pretty scary to think that these water park operators shrug off incidences so easily.