Little Caleb Schwab was just 10-years-old when his life was cut short in tragic circumstances.
The youngster was enjoying a day out at a water park when tragedy unfolded. As he stepped into a water raft, like many other thrill-seekers before him, he could have never known it would be his last moments alive.
Caleb was on the world’s tallest slide at Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City when he was decapitated mid-air in a horrific incident. Verruckt – which means “insane” in German – featured multi-person rafts that made a huge 168-foot drop at speeds of up to 70 mph, followed by a surge up a hump and a 50-foot descent to a pool.
As the raft went airborne during the ascent of the second hump of the ride at the water park, Caleb struck a metal support in the netting, decapitating him. The youngster died on the ride in 2016, just two years after it opened.
“Six went to the park and five came back,” Caleb’s heartbroken father, who is a politician in the US, said at the time. Scott and Michelle Schwab, who took their four sons to the water park, recalled the moments before Caleb and his 12-year-old brother Nathan went up to the top of the 170-foot slide.
“Before they took off I said, ‘Brothers stick together’ and [Caleb] said, ‘I know, dad,'” Scott said. Nathan went down the slide first and waited for Caleb at the bottom.
“[Nathan] was screaming, ‘He flew from Verrückt, he flew Verrückt,'” Caleb’s mother Michelle Schwab said. Michelle said she ran to the scene, but a man wouldn’t let her get any closer.
Scott said he was in shock. “I just need to hear you say it. Is my son dead?” he recalled asking someone. “And he said, ‘Yes, your son is dead.’ It was surreal. I don’t even remember driving home.”
Two other passengers in the same raft, both women, were injured in the incident – one suffered a broken jaw, while the other suffered a facial bone fracture and needed stitches. Caleb, who weighed 34kg, was sitting in the front of the raft when it went airborne.
The two women weighed 125kg and 89kg, creating an uneven distribution of weight in the raft. The total weight was 248kg, which was less than the recommended weight of 250kg. Riders, who must be at least 54in tall, are harnessed with two nylon seatbelt-like straps – one that crosses the rider’s lap, the other stretching diagonally like a car shoulder seatbelt. Each strap is held in place by long Velcro-style straps, not buckles. Riders hold ropes inside the raft.
The incident sparked widespread concern over the lack of regulations in the US state. Engineers who inspected the ride also noted that the ride’s netting, used in areas where riders travel up to 70 miles per hour, “posed its own hazard because a rider moving at high speeds could easily lose a limb if they hit it”. But the ride’s designer, Jeff Henry, had ambitions to make the “fastest, tallest water slide in the world” – despite having no engineering qualifications.
Jeff was the son of one of the founder’s of the water park franchise, Bob, and played a big role in developing the water slides. According to people who worked with Jeff, he “thought he was always right” and was “obsessed” with breaking records with his slides.
An employee at the park claimed at the time of the incident: “There was a lack of training for employees operating the rides. The only inspections we’ve done is people riding down slides one time, saying ‘it’s fine, you’re good to go for the rest of the day’.”
Footage from a documentary The Water Slide, showed a raft going airborne when the slide was first tested. In one clip, Jeff can be seen saying: “It fell backwards and killed every sand bag in there.”
Its grand opening was delayed due to safety concerns, but was finally open to the public on July 10, 2014. The rides final design had rafts travelling at a speed of 70mph, measuring 168 feet 7 inches tall.
Caleb’s father Scott spoke to his fellow legislators about his son’s death following the incident, to change the law that had allowed Schlitterbahn to self-inspect the safety of their rides. In November 2016, Schlitterbahn announced that Verrückt would be demolished following the conclusion of a criminal investigation.
The Schwab family settled with several involved parties, including Schlitterbahn, for around £15.8million ($20million) in early 2017. Settlements involving the other two riders injured in the accident were undisclosed.
Now, the family is trying to move forward while keeping Caleb’s memory alive. “There are times where you’re just like, ‘I can’t look at this,'” Scott said of old videos the family watches of Caleb, “and there are other times when you can’t sleep and you want to look at it.”
Michelle added that there’s so much the family misses about Caleb, especially his hugs. “Giving him hugs,” she said, “hearing about his day, watching him play soccer, I mean, so much, so many things.”
On March 23, 2018, a grand jury issued an indictment against Schlitterbahn and Tyler Austin Miles, former director of operations, charging them with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated battery, aggravated child endangerment, and interference with law enforcement. The indictment accused the park of negligence, concealing design flaws, and downplaying the severity of previous injuries reported on the ride.
It also wrote that Jeff Henry and John Schooley “lacked technical expertise to design a properly functioning water slide” and did not perform standard engineering procedures or calculations on how the slide would operate.
But on February 22, 2019, criminal charges were dismissed against Henry and Schooley because inadmissible evidence had been presented to the grand jury. While the park is still opening, it is under new management.