Two Women Riding With Caleb Schwab Recovering Emotionally And Physically After Waterslide Accident


Caleb Schwab, 10, was killed in a tragic accident on the Verrückt waterslide at the Schlitterbahn Kansas City Waterpark. However, Caleb wasn’t the only one in the fated raft during the fatal incident. Caleb was riding with two other women when their raft went airborne, smashing Caleb’s head against a metal hoop used to support safety netting around the waterslide chute. The boy was killed and the two women in the raft suffered facial injuries and extreme emotional trauma from witnessing the horrific death up close.

The Christian Post reports that 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was killed in a tragic accident at Schlitterbahn Kansas City Waterpark. The child reportedly wanted to ride the “world’s tallest waterslide” with his older brother, 12-year-old Nate Schwab, but was told at the last minute by park workers that the pair could no ride together as they would not meet the raft’s weight requirement. Therefore, at the top of the slide, Nate and Caleb were separated. Caleb was placed into the raft with two adult women that he did not know and was sent down the slide.

Nate went down the slide first and successfully made it to the bottom where he proceeded to standby and wait for his younger brother. However, instead of being able to greet his brother at the completion of the ride, Nate witnessed his brother die.

Reports indicate that Caleb died after he was decapitated above the shoulders after his raft became airborne and his velcro straps allegedly failed. This sent Caleb flying into a metal support hoop used to secure safety netting around the slide. The child hit the metal hoop at 65 MPH causing his tragic death. As the Inquisitr previously reported, it was local officials who demanded the safety netting be put into place over fear that the sides of the ride were too low.

However, these “safety” nets have now been determined as a contributing factor in Caleb’s death as the metal support hoops were the cause of the fatal blow to the child. The two women in the raft with Caleb were also injured during the accident. The Hays Daily News reports that the women were sisters and that they each suffered facial injuries and emotional trauma from the incident.

The two women were reportedly from a small town near the Kansas-Nebraska state line and had returned home from the horrific accident, but are remaining anonymous at this time due to the investigation. However, the husband of one of the women has spoken out about their injuries and the emotional toll the incident has taken on the them.

The husband says that his wife needed eight stitches in her chin and suffered from a broken jaw. Meanwhile, his sister-in-law needed five stitches above her eye, suffered a fracture below her eye socket and had a bruised eyeball from the incident. The woman with the broken jaw is seeing a specialist next week to determine if she will need to have her jaw wired shut or if it will be able to heal on its own.

Though the pair are suffering physically from the waterslide accident, the husband says they are also suffering emotionally and are not ready to talk about what happened on the raft. He says that the two women are receiving lots of support from the local community which has helped them cope with the aftermath of what they witnessed.

[Image via Wichita Now/Twitter]

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