Child Thrown From Water Park Slide the First Day It Was Open, and the Video Is Terrifying

A highly-anticipated new water park opened this weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Dublin, just in time for the summer. But now parents might be thinking twice about taking their children to The Wave Waterpark after a child was thrown from a water slide. A Bay Area News Group photographer covering the park’s opening caught the incident on video, and unsurprisingly, the footage is terrifying.

The Wave Waterpark had only been open for about 90 minutes when the incident happened. A ten-year-old boy was on the “Emerald Plunge” slide, an open three-story slide that drops riders at an 80-degree angle. Before removing the slide from its website, the park described it as “a severe drop induces thrills in this open air ride. Prepare for a rush as you drop three stories at an 80 degree slope.” I don’t think this is the kind of rush anyone had in mind.

The video footage shows the ten-year-old had reached the bottom when his body was violently flung from the base of the slide. He tumbled on the concrete for several feet before coming to a stop. He immediately sprang to his feet and park employees rushed to his aid. Dublin Assistant City Manager Linda Smith was standing next to the slide and saw the whole thing. ”He got up immediately and as any boy would be, he was stunned,” Smith said. ”I was worried if he was mentally OK, but physically he just had some scrapes.” The photographer who filmed the footage confirmed seeing the scrapes.

Smith said that the ride, along with the adjacent “Dublin Screamer” slide, has been closed indefinitely. “We’re not going to open it until we know what happened,” she told the East Bay Times. She also said that the ride had been tested, “scores of times” and had been given a permit to open by Cal-OSHA.

Park officials said no emergency services were called to the scene because the boy’s parents declined, opting to have the boy checked on their own.

Watch the scary video of the incident below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHSQHVnZe6U]

YIKES, right?!