In what started as a fun family day out under the hot Kansas sun ended in unimaginable horror resulting in the older brother of victim Caleb having to explain to their parents why he is dead
10 year old Caleb Thomas Schwab died on a waterslide – billed as the worlds tallest – at a park in Kansas leaving his brother to tell his parents
Caleb Schwab, 10, was out for fun at a water park when the unimaginable happened and his life was tragically taken in a freak accident. Boarding a raft on what would be his final ride ever, he couldn’t have imagined the horror that lay ahead.
On the world’s tallest water slides – taller than Niagara Falls – located at Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, was where the terror unfolded when a day of excitement turned to tragedy.
Verruckt, meaning “insane” in German, boasted a towering 168-foot drop where rafts could reach dazzling speeds of 70 mph before hitting a peak and plunging another 50 feet into a pool below.
Tragically, as Caleb’s raft soared upwards on the ride’s second hump, he collided with metal supports cloaked by netting, which resulted in his instant decapitation. The dreadful accident occurred in 2016, just two years after the launch of the notorious slide.
READ MORE: Terrifying final moments of teen who died in water park prank horror as ‘bodies fell from sky’
And in a devastating blow, it was Caleb’s older brother, Nathan, who had to inform his devastated parents what had happened. Originally, the brothers planned to ride together, but were split due to weight requirements
His devastated father, a US politician, said at the time, “Six went to the park and five came back,” reflecting on the devastating day they took their four sons to the water park.
Recalling the moments before the brothers soared atop the 170-foot slide, Scott Schwab shared his last exchange with Caleb.
“Before they took off I said, ‘Brothers stick together’ and [Caleb] said, ‘I know, dad,'” he revealed. Caleb’s older brother Nathan, aged 12, was the first to descend, awaiting his brother at the slide’s base, oblivious to the impending heartbreak.
“[Nathan] was screaming, ‘He flew from Verruckt, he flew Verruckt,'” recounted Caleb’s mother Michelle Schwab. She described how she rushed to the scene only to be stopped by a man who wouldn’t let her get any closer.
Waterpark staff were quickly on the scene but arrived to see Caleb’s body floating in the pool at the bottom of the slide.
Scott Schwab shared his state of disbelief: “I just need to hear you say it. Is my son dead?” he remembered asking someone. “And he said, ‘Yes, your son is dead.’ It was surreal. I don’t even remember driving home.”
In the same raft as Caleb, two women also sustained injuries one with a broken jaw and the other with a fractured facial bone requiring stitches. Caleb, who weighed 34kg, was seated at the front when the raft became airborne.
The combined weight of the two women, 125kg and 89kg respectively, contributed to an uneven weight distribution in the raft. The total weight was 248kg, just under the recommended minimum of 250kg.
Riders, required to be at least 54 inches tall, are secured with two nylon seatbelt-like straps one across the lap and another diagonally like a car shoulder belt. These straps are fastened with long Velcro-style strips, not buckles, and riders hold onto ropes inside the raft.
The incident raised alarms over the lack of stringent safety measures in the US state, with engineers highlighting that the netting on the ride where patrons zoom at speeds reaching 70 miles per hour “posed its own hazard because a rider moving at high speeds could easily lose a limb if they hit it”. However, the ride’s visionary, Jeff Henry, was driven by his desire to craft the “fastest, tallest water slide in the world”, even though he lacked any formal engineering credentials.
Jeff was a distant relative of one of the original founders of the water park empire, Bob, and was instrumental in shaping the water slides. Colleagues who worked with Jeff described him as someone who “thought he was always right” and had a fixation on shattering records with his designs.
At the time of the accident, a whistleblower from the water park revealed: “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’.”
Shocking scenes from the documentary The Water Slide show a raft becoming airborne during initial tests of the slide. In a particularly harrowing scene, Jeff is captured remarking: “It fell backwards and killed every sand bag in there.”
The grand unveiling of the attraction was stalled due to safety qualms but eventually welcomed the public on July 10, 2014. The ultimate construction saw rafts hurtling at 70mph and towering at 168 feet 7 inches.
Scott, Caleb’s father, addressed his fellow legislators about his son’s tragic death following the incident, pushing for a change in the law that allowed Schlitterbahn to self-inspect their ride safety. In November 2016, Schlitterbahn announced that Verruckt would be dismantled after a criminal investigation was concluded.
The Schwab family reached settlements with several parties involved, including Schlitterbahn, amounting to approximately £15.8million ($20million) in early 2017. The settlements involving the other two riders injured in the accident were not disclosed.
Now, the family is attempting to move forward while preserving Caleb’s memory. “There are times where you’re just like, ‘I can’t look at this,'” Scott said when referring to old videos of Caleb, “and there are other times when you can’t sleep and you want to look at it.”
Michelle expressed how 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, the 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.
The report also stated that Jeff Henry and John Schooley “lacked technical expertise to design a properly functioning water slide” and failed to carry out standard engineering procedures or calculations on the slide’s operation.
However, on February 22, 2019, criminal charges against Henry and Schooley were dropped due to inadmissible evidence being presented to the grand jury. Despite this, the park continues to operate under new management.
