![]() ![]() ![]() He said he wanted to raise their three children in a small town, just as he had been raised. I can’t begin to describe it.” Courtesy of Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts Retouching: Will HerwigĪ half century earlier, in 1966, a Houston accountant named Bob Henry told his wife, Billye, that he was tired of city life. ![]() “It was as horrible a moment as you could imagine,” a person who was there told me. Onlookers prevented Caleb’s mother from witnessing the scene. As the boy’s small corpse slid toward the runout pool, everyone began to scream. Waiting for Caleb at the bottom of Verrückt was one of his brothers, along with numerous spectators. His head and body flew out of the raft and landed on the chute. The hoop sliced into his neck, and he was instantly decapitated. Caleb’s head collided with a net and a semicircular metal hoop that arced over the top of the slide. But instead of staying in its fiberglass flume and cresting the hill, the raft flew up into the air. Within a few seconds, the raft reached the bottom of the hill and swooped up the second, 55-foot hill. Suddenly, it was hurtling downward: it must have felt to Caleb as if he’d fallen off a skyscraper. The gate swung open, and the conveyor belt underneath the raft began to move. The moment they reached the bottom, they would shoot up a 55-foot-tall incline-the equivalent of a five-story building-before racing down one last steep slope, finally coming to a stop in a long, water-filled runout. Three riders inside a rubber raft would plummet down a nearly vertical seventeen-story drop at speeds reaching up to 68 miles per hour. At 168 feet 7 inches tall, Verrückt, which means “insane” in German, was taller than Niagara Falls. Some “Bahnophiles” spend every summer weekend, or even entire vacations, at a Schlitterbahn.Īnd in Kansas City, even those who cared little for water or who couldn’t afford Schlitterbahn’s $45 admission ($35 for children) would drive by the park just to get a look at Verrückt. For the most devoted fans, Schlitterbahn is an aquatic version of Disney World, with something for everyone, from huge playgrounds for children to swim-up bars for adults that serve beer and margaritas. ![]() Every year, an estimated two million visitors go to the parks to plunge down slides, zoom through twisting tube chutes, and float and swim in man-made rivers and enormous pools. The others are in Texas: in New Braunfels, South Padre Island, Galveston, and Corpus Christi. The Kansas City Schlitterbahn is one of five Schlitterbahn parks in the country. VENTURE RIVER WATER PARK FREEThat day, Schlitterbahn was offering free admission to Kansas elected officials and their families, along with a buffet lunch, and the Schwabs, who lived in the town of Olathe, southwest of Kansas City, were thrilled. He had come to the park with his father, Scott, a state legislator his mother, Michele and his three brothers. Caleb was a brown-eyed boy, his nose dotted with freckles. It was a Sunday afternoon, August 7, 2016, the temperature a pleasant 78 degrees, as ten-year-old Caleb Schwab began the 264-step climb to the top of Verrückt, the world’s tallest waterslide, which loomed like a colossus over the forty-acre Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City. ![]()
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