Near-Tragedy at BWV Luna Park Pool Water Slide

[CarolMN]

Wes - Thank you for the additional explanation. I'm very glad that the little girl was not hurt. What happened after the girl was pulled out of harm's way? Did anyone speak to her or her parents then? You may be right in that some design changes could prevent this behavior. I'm sure any such change would have to be carefully considered to avoid creating other problems.

That said, I still believe that the little girl's parents should have been in the pool with her. I just can't believe that anyone would allow a 7 or 8 year old child to be in the pool alone - IMHO, being in the hot tub just doesn't cut it! Bad things can happen in just a few seconds. I'm glad to see that I am not the only parent who is absolutely appalled that young children are in the pools without their parents. That just would not happen in our family or in any of the families with which I am aquainted.

 

[fkj2]

I once "found" a child who was wearing swimming trunks but was quite close to the GF building. I thought he belonged to some man standing nearby. Oddly enough, that same man thought he belonged to me. So, I took the child by the hand, told him we were going to the lifeguard who would find his mommy and kept asking as we walked past the sunbathers, "Do you see Mommy yet?" We were nearly to the guard when some woman came up to us, took the child by his hand and glared at me, as though I was some criminal trying to abduct her child. I later walked close enough to the family leaving the pool area and overheard the mom telling her husband, "She had him by the hand."

I thought, "Lady, you were so lucky it was someone like me that found your kid." I'm sure there are enough predators who could easily come unto Disney property at that time. (6 years ago)

So few people want to accept personal responsibility anymore. And the trial lawyers haven't done anything to help either.

 

[d-r]

Of course young children should be supervised while swimming, Absolutely and closely. No doubt about it.

When y'all were kids, didn't you ever run into someone at the bottom of the slide when you were sliding or be at the bottom of the slide and the slider run in to you? Rough and tumble sure, but not fatal - am I missing something about the situation?

Of course safety comes first always.

DR

 

[doubletrouble_vb]

Let's agree that there are and always will be irresponsible parents. Given that that is the case and that kids like to climb everything its pretty clear the Luna Park poolslide requires some safety enhancements. First of all there should be 2 lifeguards. One to signal the people at the top of the slide to go and one to watch the bottom and to let the guard at the top know the slide is clear.

In addition posted signs along the wall telling people to stay clear of it would help. Most people who could get to, and move along the wall, can read (if not necessarily english). That way...once the girl started inching along the wall the lifeguard could have called her off before she got too close to the slide to hear him or her.

Finally...the lifeguard should have had at least a shrill and loud whistle. The human voice may be hard to hear over rushing water but a whistle has more penetration.

Theme pools come very close to crossing the boundary between a pool and a water park. Disney doesn't provide the level of safety they should for the slides.

 

[pwoodham]

My boys would love to climb on the outside of the clown's face. They know however, they will be banned from the pool if they do. I think I've seen kids climbing on the clown face every time we've been there. Yes, the lifeguards do get after them, but as has been stated, the parents should be there to reinforce what the lifeguard is saying, or even better, to let the kids know it's unacceptable behavior before the lifeguard has to get involved.
Unfortunately, you never know what kids will try before you get there, so you can't prepare for every eventuality in advance. "Be good at the pool" doesn't cut it. You simply have to be aware of where they are and what they're doing every minute to ward off potentially dangerous situations. You can't cover all the "no's" in advance. The other lesson this reinforces for my kids is that it doesn't matter what everyone else is doing. You obey your mom or you pay the price.

 

[Wes]

Originally posted by d-r
When y'all were kids, didn't you ever run into someone at the bottom of the slide when you were sliding or be at the bottom of the slide and the slider run in to you? Rough and tumble sure, but not fatal - am I missing something about the situation?

Yes, I guess I did not describe it well enough, so that you are missing something.

The girl was using all the force she had to push upward into the slide, against the strongly rushing water. When we bumped into other kids, they were in the water and not either a stationary fixed object or an anchored force strongly moving toward us. So we bumped and there was enough "give" on both our sides that no one was badly hurt.

But there was no "give" in this case. The physics were quite different. It is like two cars hitting that are going, say, 25 and 15 mph. Neither one is going very fast, but the forces meeting head-on are like a 40 mph crash. This is why the girl had pushed herself into a very dangerous position.

 

[anniet]

Since I'm new to DVC, I have not had the pleasure of experiencing the pool at BWV. But we've stayed at Coronado Springs twice, and constantly kids were climbing up the Mayan Temple and the lifeguards kept having to yell at them to get down. (it's not a slide, but still a dangerous situation to be climbing UP when water is rushing down!)

I have to agree with others though, the parents should have been more responsible with this child. Disney could change the pool to make it more safe, but I don't think they should if 1)the amount of safety needed detracts aesthetically (How often does this sort of thing happen) and 2)if the problem can be corrected with RULES like no children under a certain age should be swimming in the pool unattended by an adult.

You knew where your grandsons were at every moment of that description Wes...and I'm willing to bet money every other moment while you were at the pool as well. WHY didn't these parents know where their daughter was? (yeah, I know, I know, they were in the hot tub!)

 

[PKS44]

Of course this never should have happened but I have been to Luna apark and I think the notion that this is like a car going 25 mph or even 3 mph is an exaggeration...I seriously doubt any major injury would have occured. WEs, you already said the girl was being pushed away by the water, so she at best barely moving in the opposite direction. Secondly people do not come out of the slide that fast.

Finally, there is no reason to put up any ugly nets in the attempt to idiot proof the world...the world has risks...this risk can be easily and simply reduced by having a no swim zone around the base of the slide...the life guard below can whistle if anyone enters that zone as this stupid little girl did and the life guard at the top of the slide can halt anyone from getting into the slide until the all clear signal is sounded. The life guard had time to shout 3 times so I can't see how he could not have blown the "hold it" whistle first (thus stopping the slide use immediately) then cleared the zone-long before any near collisions took place.

Please do not change my Luna Park Pool.

Paul

 

[MELSMICE]

Please remember that Wes was there & saw what happened. It sounds to me like there could have been an injury. How serious? - luckily Wes & her (or his) grandsons will never know.

The point is that parents should watch their children. Supervising them in the pool does not mean being there in the same vicinity. It means watching them at all times. If the parents were watching this child this topic would be moot.

 

[PKS44]

Please remember that people can overestimate or exaggerate things particulary when it involves possible injury to their children or grandchildren...nothing wrong with that...it is human nature--but before we go drawing up plans to altering things at a pool that apparently has been free from any significant injury problems for its entire existence let's just realize that maybe things are not as bad as they are being made to appear...maybe they are...but I don't know Wes' credentials in accident assessment or even his understanding of plain old physics...and I don't doubt it looked bad to him...I just am unconvinced it was necessarily a "near tragedy"-- if it were I don't think Disney would keep the pool open...if they did -posts like this would be offered of proof that they knew this was a MAJOR RISK and HAZARD and did nothing to change things... and yet the slide still is open...given the jitteriness of Disney's lawyers -that speaks volumes about what the risks might actually be here.

My main point is not that Wes is right or wrong- it is that things are not so bad as to mandate structural changes--It is as others have said-- supervision is needed -not misguided architectural changes to try to IDIOT PROOF the place.

Paul

 

[d-r]

You know what, the point is that everyone should watch their children at all times in the pool. That's just the bottom line of it. I used to be a life guard in the summers, and I had to pull kids out a few times. I can't imagine that the life guard didn't have a whistle and was just shouting - that shouldn't be the case at all.

DR

 

[ncligs]

Originally posted by d-r
You know what, the point is that everyone should watch their children at all times in the pool. That's just the bottom line of it.
DR

 

[Wes]

Originally posted by d-r
I can't imagine that the life guard didn't have a whistle and was just shouting - that shouldn't be the case at all.

I have to agree with you there. I was watching what was happening, and since the life guard seat is so far away from the clown's mouth, it was not within my line of sight. I do not know if the lifeguard had a whistle, but I certainly do not recall hearing one. All I recall was his three shouts, each one more urgent than the one before ... but still easy to ignore with all the other noise from the pool. And for the girl, the roar of the water coming out of the slide between her and him probably made it even harder to hear him.

 

[Wes]

Originally posted by PKS44
... I think the notion that this is like a car going 25 mph or even 3 mph is an exaggeration

The physics involves both bodies, not just one. So even if she was moving upward at only a fraction of a mile an hour or was simply locking herself into a stationary position, it is the sum of the two forces that matters.

A fall down a water slide is not a free fall, but it takes only a little math -- and throwing in a negative acceleration due to friction and other factors -- to see that a kid coming down a 40 or 50 foot high water slide is traveling very fast.

Here is a URL (http://www.orlando.hotels.hotelreservationnetworks.com/orlando_hotels/places.html) for an article that gives the speeds of some of the water slides at Blizzard Beach (Summit Plummet - 55 mph) and Typhoon Lagoon (50 foot Humunga Kowabunga - 30 mph). A collision of unprotected bodies at even 25 mph is going to be a disaster to both, particularly if they are completely unaware of the impending collision -- and especially if one of them takes it directly to the head.

 

[NotUrsula]

No, not really, but sometimes it's a tempting thought.

I've always been appalled by the lack of safety precautions on that particular slide, because it is quite large and can be very disorienting if your body turns backward as you descend. I would not let my son onto it at age 3, but I heard a lifeguard that day actually approve sending down a child of less than 2 years old. I was terrified that that baby might drown on the way down, let alone after hitting the bottom (and she DID hit bottom head first on her back, having spun around going through the curves. She was obviously terrified after the experience, and her idiot parents were laughing about how cute her screaming was.) A serious injury would indeed be possible; a broken neck comes forcibly to mind.

I don't think netting is necessarily the answer (to easy to crawl on), but there does need to be some sort of barrier to slow down a child attempting to climb across the face. In addition, any time someone DOES do it, it's time to have the entire family escorted out of the pool area. If the adults are not present, then resort security should handle the situation, up to and including calling the police if the responsible adult cannot be found on the resort premises. I can't recall exactly, since it's been 2 years since I've been to that pool, but I think that the prohibition on climbing is already prominently posted; it's time to take serious steps to make sure that the rule is enforced.

 

[vbfamily]

Not Ursula...

When we were at VB in October-the lifeguards approved of several children going down the slide who were under the age of 2. So it happens at more than one Disney Resort. We could NOT believe it-every child who went down got turned around and ended up going in backwards or head first and the parents just remarked about how cute it was. If you can't keep yourself face forward and upright you shouldn't be allowed to go on any slide at WDW.

I didn't mean to get off subject of the original thread-just wanted to let you know that we observed the same stupidity recently.

 

[Wes]

Here are some photos that I found on the web to give a better feel for the layout of the area around the clown's mouth.

http://www.disney.ca/vacations/disneyworld/II/B/16/recreation.html#4 - click "pools" or scroll down to the pools and click on the link (Java code) to "Take a 360 degree virtual tour". This is about the layout as I remember it that day. To the right of the clown, you can make out against the slide's structure the lifeguard station. From this angle which flattens the image, it looks like the lifeguard station is pretty close to the clown, but with the curve of the pool there, the station is actually further forward than the slide and not as close to the clown as it appears.

http://www.wdwig.com/bwv3.jpg - This is an older photo which does not show the lifeguard station there. (There is one behind the peak of the tent top.) But it gives a better view of how the curve of the pool forced the station on that side to be far enough away from the mouth that the lifeguard had no hope of winning the race with the child who was already almost at the mouth. I believe the station was on the first curve on the far side of the pool, between the pool railings visible just past the clown wall and the white trash or towel can. This is where the lifeguard was who yelled at the girl.

http://www.yourmagicaljourneys.com/images/bw_clownpool2.jpg - This is a great view of the clown mouth and wall. Some of your notes had said you thought there were posted warnings, but there are none visible here, and I do not recall seeing any there either.

http://www.vacationownership.com/disney/boardwalk/disney_bw_main.html - I'm including this one, since it appears to be the way it once was. There is a life guard stand with a red umbrella to the left of the clown. That station would have had some hope of getting to the girl with a powerful dive by the lifeguard. That stand is gone, as the 360 degree shot shows.

 

[PKS44]

Wes-

thanks for posting the picture links...I always like to see pictures of my home away from home...the links about the speeds at the water parks' slides however are irrelevant...those are slides that are designed to go really fast...I have actually been on the Luna Park slide and can guarantee you it is nothing like any water park slide I have ever been on- not even close...the fastest resort slide in all of WDW is the SAB straightaway section out of the ship..and that is the point..slides that curve are constantly taking the forward speed and redirecting it and lessening it as you go down...and Luna Park is a very curvy slide...by the time a little kid reaches bottom there is absolutely no way in the world they are going anywhere near 25mph---those slides that you mention that reach those speeds all have special safety precautions and checks to keep sliders from getting anywhere near each other- yet Luna Park has no such checks because they don't need to- the speed of a kid coming down and out that mouth might be 5mph and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it is slower than that even...definetly less than 10 mph...the kids would have bumped into each other, the little girl would have lost hold of her grip and been pushed out by the force of the water and the slider and that would likely have been the end of it --I would hope so--otherwise for the 7 years or whatever its been since Luna Park opened Disney has been ignoring this kind of time bomb tragedy and continues to do so..it is too extraordinary to believe that this is the only time this has ever happened or almost happened..I would guess there have actually been little girls (or boys) who were not yanked out of the way in time..the sheer number of guests who have been there since it opened practically mandates that this must have happened at least once before now....

And yet one stupid kid steps out of a moving ride at Disneyland and they redesign the vehicle, or some moron jumps up and out of a log ride in a nonDisney park and suddenly Splash Mountain is "no longer" safe to operate in Disneyland.
Disney seems pretty quick to react to any safety concerns that idiots can create-yet they seem unconcerned about Keister Coaster...I have confidence that they know what they are doing.

Paul

 

[jcodespoti]

I would hate to see changes to the pool. You can't idiot proof everything (its like the disclaimer on a Duraflame log....Warning may cause fire!!). You can't design/dicatate every little move that people will make (no matter what there size). If someone does not want to watch their child then they should be prepared to deal with the results. The only thing thats a real bummer is that the unsuprivised child gets hurt and/or hurts someone else and the parents scratch their head and wonder what happened.


Joe in CT

 

[msdis]

The apple never falls far from the tree.