B.C.’s water parks are being urged to beef up inspections and maintenance after three people were hurt going down a damaged tube slide in the Fraser Valley last summer, including an 11-year-old girl who suffered a “traumatic” leg gash.
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Even after the jagged crack in the fibreglass was discovered, the general manager of the Bridal Falls Waterpark allowed the remaining patrons in the queue to evacuate the ride by going down the slide with staff trying to “push” patrons around the defect, according to a report by Technical Safety B.C. into the July 14, 2024, incident.
That’s when the 11-year-old was badly cut on the back of the leg, said the report.
Technical Safety B.C. is an independent, non-profit safety regulator that administers the province’s Safety Standards Act and is funded by operators’ licensing fees.
Ryan Hazlett, lead investigator for the regulator, said there is a high level of safety in water parks and slides are inspected daily.
In this instance, there were some “hidden defects that weren’t necessarily identified, but that was a unique situation.”
He said the report’s findings are intended to educate owners and operators on maintenance and replacement schedules for aging water parks, so they can identify and repair defects before they become hazards.
Some water parks, including Bridal Falls, were built in the 1980s, he said.
“It’s up to owners to manage the life cycles of the water slides.”
Don Sharpe, vice president of Bridal Falls Waterpark, said Tuesday the company was saddened about what happened and “we will do everything we can to make it completely safe for people to use.”
“This was really unfortunate. … It was something that was unforeseen,” he said.
The regulator made three recommendations to owners of fibreglass waterslides: daily inspections to identify any bulges, movement or changes in the shape of flumes — the sliding surfaces — with repairs done immediately; yearly assessments by a manufacturer’s representative or a qualified third-party inspector to identify deterioration of a slide’s wooden core; and training employees to stop riders from continuing down a slide as soon as an unsafe condition is identified.
The slide with the defect passed its daily inspection the morning of July 14, but the crack progressed rapidly because of underlying structural problems, the report found.
The wooden base beneath the fibreglass — designed to support the flume and add rigidity and stability — had rotted away, the report said. Also, the ground beneath the structural supports had shifted and eroded.
That caused a jagged 20-centimetre crack to open in the fibreglass.
At about 2:45 p.m. that day, a woman cut her toe on the crack and needed an ambulance. Her friend told staff others had their bathing suits torn going down the slide.
Roughly 45 minutes later, the report said, a second rider got a foot caught in the crack and suffered an ankle injury.
Not long after that, the 11-year-old went over the crack and it “ripped her right leg.” An ambulance was also called.
The investigation found that the gap left by the rotted wood had been filled in with spray foam, maintenance carried out by the park’s previous owner, unbeknownst to the current owner, said Hazlett.
Contributing to the defect were changes to the slide’s structural supports because of the eroding effect of rain and water splashed from the slide over the years, the report said.
Those gradual changes wouldn’t have been apparent to park employees responsible for daily safety inspections, according to the report. They didn’t think the bulging or “soft spots” were a concern, and instead believed they were part of the structure’s design.
At about 3:30 p.m., a patron notified the general manager of an “irregularity” near the bottom of the tube slide. The general manager saw the crack and made the decision to shut down the slide, but still allowed patrons who were in the queue to come down the slide, resulting in the ankle injury and the injury to the 11-year-old girl.
The manager believed the risk to patrons was low and directed an employee standing upstream from the crack to “push” patrons around the defect. The report found that staff who were tending to the earlier injured patrons had not informed management of the source of the injuries.
“When the general manager was viewing the crack and making the decision to evacuate patrons down the slide, they did not make the connection that the crack and injuries could be related.”
The owner had completed “significant repairs and upgrades” on several slides in the water park over the previous five years, the report said. But none had been done on the tube slide for the previous three years, according to the fibreglass contractor.
The contractor had realigned the flume three years prior because ground shifting had caused some of the joints to separate.
The water park has hired an engineer to do an assessment and report back within a month, said Sharpe.
The water park, together with Technical Safety B.C., will then decide what to do with the tube slide, “whether we carry on and fix it or do something else.”
Sharpe said Technical Safety B.C. did yearly pre-season inspections and made maintenance recommendations and the park complied with all of them.
Technical Safety B.C. has a separate enforcement branch that can issue warning notices or monetary penalties, and even suspend contractor licenses or individual qualifications. Hazlett didn’t have any information about whether such action is being considered in the Bridal Falls case.