Dreamworld Inquest Day 2: Junior engineer gives evidence in inquest on 2016 theme park tragedy
A DREAMWORLD security officer has told the inquest he had to watch horrifying CCTV footage of the Thunder River Rapids Ride tragedy numerous times with police.
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A DREAMWORLD security officer has told the inquest he had to watch horrifying CCTV footage of the Thunder River Rapids Ride tragedy numerous times with police.
Security officer Nigel Irwin told the inquest it was his job to take police through the CCTV footage the day of the incident.
“I obviously had police come and take over the control room … every officer wanted to see the footage. Every senior officer wanted to see the same thing,” Mr Irwin said.
“I watched it numerous times and forwards, backwards and the same thing. It was quite distressing.”
Mr Irwin was the one to call Triple 0 the day of the incident.
He said he received a panicked call from another staff member.
“I’ve got a raft on the conveyor,” the staff member told him.
Mr Irwin called Triple 0 before he knew the extent of the tragedy and relayed information to the paramedics as park first responders and security relayed information to him.
“There was one person on the conveyor and one unconscious turning blue,” he said.
Mr Irwin said the response and getting emergency crews into the park was “smooth”.
“Everything went pretty smoothly for the Rapids one (emergency) unfortunately there was just nothing we could do when we got there,” he said.
Mr Irwin said he was also in the control room during an incident in April 2016 when someone fell off the log ride into the water.
Earlier, Dreamworld junior engineer Gen Cruz has denied there was a “culture of secrecy” regarding ride incidents at the theme park in the inquest into the Thunder River Rapids Ride disaster.
Barrister for the Araghi family Toby Neilson asked Mr Cruz: “Do you believe that at that time, that there was a culture of secrecy within the employees of Dreamworld regrading incidents that occurred on the rides?”
Mr Cruz replied “no”.
Mr Neilson had been questioning Mr Cruz about the information he provided to an external engineer who was conducting a safety inspection on the Thunder River Rapids Ride.
Mr Cruz told the inquest he had not provided CCTV footage of a November 2014 incident on the ride because he did not know about it.
The inquest was played the footage which showed two rafts colliding on the Thunder River Rapids Ride conveyor belt in the same place the fatal incident occurred in 2016.
No one was injured in the 2014 incident.
Mr Cruz told an inquest into the deaths of four people on the Thunder River Rapids Ride that a second tertiary trained engineer responsible for risk assessments was not employed at the park until six months ago.
Mr Cruz also told the inquest he did not know who was responsible for conducting risk assessments when there were near misses or incidents that jeopardised guest safety.
The inquest is examining what occurred after a pump stopped working on the Thunder River Rapids Ride, causing water levels to drop and a raft to become stuck on the conveyor belt on October 25, 2016.
That raft was hit by another carrying Luke Dorsett, his sister Kate Goodchild, her daughter Ebony, 12, Roozbeh Araghi, Cindy Low and her son, Kieran, 10.
The four adults were killed. The children escaped uninjured.
The inquest heard that six weeks after Mr Cruz started in September 2014, an incident occurred in which two rafts collided at the top of the ride.
Barrister Stephen Whybrow, acting for the families of Kate Goodchild and Luke Dorsett, asked if he was ever made aware of the incident.
“No,” Mr Cruz replied.
He was asked if, as the only engineer on site, it would have been helpful for his job to be informed of an incident.
“The answer for that is no because in my job, I don’t get to do much of high level risk assessment,” Mr Cruz said.
Mr Whybrow asked Mr Cruz who was responsible for conducting the risk assessments at that stage.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
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Mr Cruz told the Coroners Court of Queensland at Southport he believed he was the only tertiary qualified engineer on staff at Dreamworld until six months ago, when a second engineer was hired.
He said that engineer was responsible for risk assessments.
Dreamworld was Mr Cruz’s first job after he completed university.
Mr Cruz said if he needed assistance he would go to the engineer at White Water World.
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The inquest also heard that the Thunder River Rapids Ride was certified as mechanically sound eight days before the 2016 disaster.
The inquest was shown a certificate completed by machinery inspector Tom Polley.
“A visual inspection of the device (including a specific inspection of visible mechanical and structural critical components) has been completed. This inspection did not include an electrical inspection,” the document reads.
“In my opinion, this device was mechanically and structurally safe to use at the time of inspection provided the above recommendation is appropriately considered and the above fault found is repaired.”
The document was dated October 17, 2016.
The fault found was an issue with the anti-roll back gate and the recommendation was it be added to the inspection.
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