Horse play causes slide to collapse
"There is a number of factors which contributed to the collapse. It cannot all be blamed on one person," said Mafunyane owner Mr Jimmy Brass.
MBOMBELA – Four children sustained minor injuries when a slide collapsed at Mafunyane Water Park Riverside on Wednesday.
According to eyewitnesses, the youngsters apparently formed a group on the slide so that their friends could bump into them. They saw six children in the corner of the slide before the structure gave way, causing the slide to fall two metres to the ground.
They sustained a few minor bumps and bruises and were attended to immediately.
Social-media users were outraged at the lack of safety of the structure.
Mafunyane owner, Mr Jimmy Brass, said the collapse couldn’t be ascribed to faults in the structure, but to “naughty children who did not obey the park’s rules, plus a faulty bolt that broke”. “They deliberately blocked the slide so their friends could bump into them as they came around the corner. The structure simply could not handle the weight of and the force with which they came down. The rules clearly stipulate that blocking the slides are prohibited.”
One of the children, Monique Pretorius (13), told Lowvelder that the lifeguard told her, her sister and a friend that they could go down consecutively. Before them, three boys went down.
“When we approached the turn, we heard a crack. We didn’t know what it was and we became worried. All of a sudden, we crashed into the boys and then the structure broke.”
Brass explained that it was not against the rules to slide down shortly after one another. One of the bolts, which held two sections of the slide together, broke and subsequently more came undone.
“There is a number of factors which contributed to the collapse. It cannot all be blamed on one person.”
According to Brass, the slides are checked every day and maintenance is done monthly. He added that there were two qualified first-aid practitioners at Mafunyane at all times. “We have access to the mall’s first aid and the Hi-Tech Emergency Medical Services are on standby.”
When asked which rules would have to be implemented to prevent this from happening again, Brass commented that he did not want to reinstate the rule that a person first had to complete the slide and be in the water before the next person went down. “On a busy day, the queue will be halfway down the road if we had to reinstate that rule.” He requested the public to adhere to the park’s rules to ensure no similar incident occurred in the future. He would also replace the current bolts with thicker ones.
