TWO teenagers have described the horrific moment they saw a trail of blood following Caleb Schwab’s body down a waterslide – after he was tragically killed on the 168ft-high ride.
The 10-year-old son of Kansas lawmaker Scott Schwab died while riding the world’s tallest waterslide – the Verruckt, in Kansas City.
Melanie Gocke told CNN: “I heard the noise, and I looked over immediately, and I saw his broken neck and him sliding down the slide leaving a blood trail.”
Her friend Jess Sanford added: “I only saw Caleb slide down the last half of the slide, and then I saw the blood.
“His friend was screaming for help and I think that’s when staff members and medics and stuff started running.”
It appeared those who reached him first “just realised he was dead and didn’t try to revive him”, she added.
Their horrific account of the tragedy comes as footage of rafts flying off the waterslide emerged, sparking new concerns about the safety of the ride.
The opening of the 17-storey freefall water ride has been revealed to have been pushed back twice.
Footage of the ride being tested show rafts flying from the huge ride with it delayed twice due to safety concerns and technical glitches.
When the ride first opened in 2014, co-owner and Verruckt creator Jess Henry told USA Today: “We had many issues on the engineering side. A lot of our math was based on rollercoasters at first, and that didn’t translate to a water slide like this. No one had ever done anything like this.”
The ride, which is taller than both the Statue of Liberty and Niagra Falls, left even its creator terrified.
He said: “I’m still recovering mentally. It’s like jumping off the Empire State Building. It’s the scariest thing I’ve done.”
He said at the time that while the ride was dangerous, it was “safe dangerous”.
The Verruckt ride, which means “insane” in German, was open at the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, Kansas, when Caleb was killed.
Witness Kelsey Friedrichse told PEOPLE that she and her boyfriend were on their way up the huge water slide when they saw crowds gathering at the bottom of the 168-foot ride.
She said: “There was a woman being treated for some kind of injury on her face and head. That was when my boyfriend said, ‘I think there is someone else’.”
The 27-year-old said she was horrified to see the body of the 10-year-old being covered by first responders.
She said: “It looked like he must have somehow been ejected from his seat, bounced around between the netting and the slide and just slide down. He would have fallen down without the raft, it’s kind of like a tube.”
The park has since been shut down while an investigation into the boy’s death continues.
Other traumatised witnesses said they saw Caleb’s family crying as emergency services treated the other two women who were on the raft.
Other thrill-seekers have since shared their experiences on the ride, including Paul Oberhauser, who told local station KCTV that his shoulder restraint had “busted loose”.
He said: “As soon as I hit the bottom of the first curve the shoulder strap just kind of busted loose.”
He said he had told park staff, saying: “They kinda said, ‘Oh no, really’ or something ‘yes, that’s not good’. And so it sounded like, you know, they were going to do something about it.”
The 168ft-high Verruckt, which means “insane” in German, was certified as the world’s tallest water slide by Guinness World Records.
Riders go down the slide in multi-person rafts and have to be at last 54 inches tall, according to the park’s website.
Kenneth Conrad told Fox4 that his friend’s shoulder strap had come “completely off” during a ride on the slide last year.
He said: “As we were going down, we went down the first one, and as we were approaching the second one, he was in the back and you could hear him say that his strap came off and when we hit, he was real tense, shaken, because his strap had come completely off and literally he was using all of his force to hold him onto the slide.”
Kansas Senator David Haley has since demanded better regulation of amusement parks with it revealed the Verruckt ride had not been inspected by the state since it was opened.
Schwab and his wife released a statement confirming it was their son Caleb Thomas Schwab, whose family were at the park with him when he died.
Asking for privacy to grieve, they said: “Since the day he was born, he brought abundant joy to our family and all those he came in contact with.”
Kansas Police Department has since released a statement, expressing their condolences to the Schwab family after the tragic loss of Caleb.
In the statement, police said: "Caleb Schwab was 1 of 3 passengers riding in a boat on the Verruckt Water Slide on August 7th, 2016. At approximately 1430 hours an off duty officer working at Schlitterbahn notified police dispatch that an incident had occurred on the Verruckt Water Slide, and assistance was needed.
"The Kansas City, Kansas Police and Fire Departments responded to the scene and located Caleb Schwab, 10 years old, dead from a fatal neck injury at the end of the ride, in the pool. The 2 other adult female riders in the boat, not related to the victim, sustained minor facial injuries, and were transported and treated at area hospitals."
Police said investigations into the incident were ongoing.
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