Bombshells dropped about Dreamworld’s mistakes in lead up to terrifying diaster
THE families of the four adults who lost their lives at Dreamworld have been forced to listen for five days in court as — again and again — the inquest is told of the failings which led to the tragedy.
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THE families of the four adults who lost their lives at Dreamworld have sat stoically in court 17 in Southport listening for five days as again and again the inquest is told of the failings which led to the tragedy.
Each hour brings another heartbreaking detail into the disaster which claimed the lives of Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett, Roozbeh Araghi and Cindy Low.
The Southport Coroner’s Court has heard some of the terrifying details about what happened.
These are the most explosive claims.
WHICH BUTTON?
THE two operators at the controls the day of the Thunder River Rapids Ride disaster did not know there was a time difference between the two conveyor stop buttons.
A shut down of the Thunder River Rapids Ride needs the operator to press four buttons in a specific order on the main control panel.
Once all four are pressed it took eight seconds to stop the conveyor.
A second conveyor emergency stop button was about 10 metres away on the unload platform.
The buttons stopped the belt in two seconds.
Peter Nemeth, the man at the control panel at the time, told the inquest he pressed the conveyor stop button two or three times.
“It didn’t stop,” Mr Nemeth said.
Police investigating the tragedy called the control panel “confusing”.
Neither ride operator working at the time of the disaster knew there was a six-second speed difference between the two buttons.
When ride operator Courtney Williams was trained on the morning of the disaster her trainer Amy Crisp told her to press four buttons in an anticlockwise manner, starting from the bottom.
SPECIAL REPORT: HOW THUNDER RIVER RAPIDS RIDE EVOLVED
Ms Williams was standing next to the fast emergency stop button but did not know what it did.
“She (Amy Crisp) said, ‘do you see that button over there, don’t worry about it, you don’t need to use it’,” Ms Williams told the inquest.
She said if she had know what the button did, she would not have hesitated.
“I would have done everything that I could have to do that,” she said.
Mr Nemeth also told the inquest he would have told Ms Williams to press the button.
A memo sent a week before the incident told employees only to press the fast emergency stop button when the main control panel was not manned.
Police crash investigator Senior Constable Steven Cornish said if the fast stop button had been pressed it would have “limited” the injuries.
17 YEARS OF WARNINGS
DREAMWORLD ignored a series of warnings for 17 years leading up to the fatal incident on the Thunder River Rapids Ride.
A raft flipped in January 2001, 15 years before the fatalities, after being caught in almost the same spot on the conveyor belt in a dry run before the park opened, leading engineers to voice their concerns in an internal email.
“I shudder when I think if there had been guest on the ride,” the email read.
There was a second collision of rafts in 2004 where one guest ended up in the water. No one was injury.
A 1999 safety audit recommended an emergency stop button be installed which stopped all mechanisms of the ride at once. It was never done.
In November 2014 two rafts collided on the conveyor belt. The operator manning the ride was sacked for not following the shut down and start up procedure.
SHOULD HAVE KNOWN
FORENSIC crash investigator Senior Constable Steven Cornish told the inquest the raft flipping was a disaster waiting to happen.
“The potential for that to happen was always there,” he said.
The inquest was also told that if the two-second emergency stop button located at the end of the ride had been pressed at any time before the rafts collided, the tragedy could have been avoided.
“They (the rafts) touch three times, before they get to that point … If it (the button) had been depressed at any time this would have avoided the tragedy,” he said.
NO TRAINING
DREAMWORLD staff have never been placed in an emergency simulation as a part of their training when operating the rides, according to four different ride operators.
Ride operator Tim Williams, who has worked at Dreamworld since 2013, said since the disaster the park still had not put staff through drills or simulations.
“There has been talk and plans of doing it but not as yet as far as I am aware of it,” he said.
The claims about a lack of training came after staff at Dreamworld raised concerns about their training with the Bulletin in the days leading up to the inquest.
PUMP BREAKDOWNS
THE Thunder River Rapids Ride had been having issues with its south pump for at least a week leading up to the tragedy.
The disaster happened when water levels dropped following the failure of the south pump, causing a raft to get stuck.
The south pump, one of two which operate the ride, failed on October 19, 2016 and was reset by engineers that day.
The pump broke down again on October 23 and was reset.
On the day of the diaster, the pump failed at 11.50am and again at 1.09pm
The pump failed for a third time at 2.03pm, leading up to the disaster.
DON’T TALK TO POLICE
THE junior operator of the Thunder River Rapids Ride was told by a senior manager at Dreamworld not to give a statement to police on the day four people tragically died.
Courtney Williams, 21 at the time, climbed on to the conveyor to pull Ms Low’s son Kieran, 10, from the ride.
In a statement to police, Ms Williams said a senior manager of Dreamworld she knew only as “Troy” told her not to give a statement.
“He told me not to say anything to anyone, don’t give any statements and just wait over to the side,” she said in a statement shown to the inquest.
TOO MANY TASKS
MATTHEW Hickey, the barrister for Ms Low’s family, listed more than 20 tasks ride operator Peter Nemeth would have needed to complete in less than a minute between rafts being launched. He also had to monitor 16 potential hazards during the ride.
The list included helping children on to the raft, checking CCTV cameras to ensure rafts were not stuck or passengers had fallen in the water, loading the ride and monitoring the queue.
Mr Nemeth agreed that it was impossible for a single person to do all the tasks in less than a minute.
“Mr Nemeth, wouldn’t it have made sense in doing that very difficult job by being provided another level-three ride operator rather than a level-two operator?” Mr Hickey asked.
“Yes, it would have made it easier,” Mr Nemeth replied.
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