A “traumatic” injury to an 11-year-old child at Bridal Falls Waterpark occurred after staff failed to properly communicate with one another over a faulty tube slide, according to Technical Safety BC.
The province’s safety regulator of theme park rides was tasked with investigating how the child ended up with a severe laceration to their leg on July 14, 2024.
According to lead investigator Ryan Hazlett in Tuesday’s findings, the waterpark staff and management were first informed of an injury on the fibreglass tube slide – a result of a protruding crack – at around 2:45 p.m. that day.
Then, with an ambulance already on site, several other sliders were injured. By 3:30 p.m. the general manager was informed of an “irregularity” on the slide, according to the report.
Thereafter, “during this inspection, the general manager made the decision that the Tube Slide should be closed but they would evacuate the remaining riders in queue down the slide first.”
A slide attendant entered the slide to “push those riders around the crack” but despite those attempts, the 11-year-old child passed over the crack at 3:34 p.m. and received a major laceration to their leg.
The child’s recovery is expected to be “long-term,” wrote Hazlett.
While staff do daily morning inspections, the crack developed over the course of the day, and staff did not have the “knowledge or tools available” to either detect the deterioration or know that it could progress into a hazardous failure so quickly, the report stated.
The report makes no explicit findings of negligence nor is there any indication the waterpark has been fined.
“One incident is too many, especially when a child is seriously injured. By sharing the findings from this investigation, we can support the waterpark industry in enhancing their safety and prevention measures,” stated Hazlett.
Bridal Falls may not re-open until the agency is satisfied it has met the three recommendations outlined in the report.
One problem identified by the agency is that the visual inspections were not conducted in the tube slide, but from the side, and turbulent water prevented a clear image of the faulty slide.
The agency has asked all waterpark owners to improve inspection procedures.
In this case the slide hadn’t had preventative maintenance in three years, so the agency is also recommending better documentation “so that owners can make good decisions around lifecycle management of their waterslides.”
And, finally, when a hazard is suspected, waterpark staff are to be trained to not let anyone else go down the slide.
BIV reached out to Bridal Falls for comment but did not receive a response by publication.
