LaPetite69

We had a similar incident with our daughter being injured on one of those "shooter" slides on the Getaway last year. It was horrible how we were treated after receiving no assistance by the slide personnel, and having to go to guest services, the medical clinic and ultimately security. They made us feel like we were at fault...

This tube slide is rather unique in that it has two tubes that go down at the same time, hence the name Aqua Racer. I had done it with my son and it was super fun and was looking forward to going down with DD5. She loves water slides and I was surprised it had taken her until now to ask to ride.

 

The thing is, although DD5 had been on several much larger water slides in the past, it was her first time on THIS slide, and it had been several months since we had been to a water park and I needed assistance to manage two tubes and help get us both in together at the same time. First of all, the attended paid no attention to us whatsoever, in fact he was sitting in a chair with his BACK to the slide. I called to him and asked for help.

 

Our daughter was well above the height requirement for the slide (not that he checked) so she should have been able to sit in the tube properly, but for some reason the slide attendant placed our daughter in the tube incorrectly-he turned the tube so the handles were in the back and not the front and sat her on the edge instead of in the center-before I could say anything about her not being safely positioned in the tube and before I was even IN my OWN adjacent tube, he gave her a HUGE SHOVE down the slide. I was speechless. I saw he had a look of horror on his face and he shouted to DD5 "Get in he middle!" and as I jumped in my tube and pushed off she turned the corner and I heard a LOUD THUD followed by crying screams of terror.

 

I could go into great detail about what happened next as I myself turned the corner and saw her sweet little body out of the tube-this felt like the longest water slide of my life in that moment-but it is just too personal and fraught with emotion to share the details. You will have to use your imagination. All I will say is it was AWFUL to watch.

 

At the bottom of the slide when she was safely in my arms, I told the other attendant at the base "He put her in the tube the wrong way and she fell out of her tube!" And the attendant replied "I know, I heard" and he tried to cheer her up but she was holding her head in pain and cried "I fell backwards and bumped my head." I was furious at the attendant at the top of the slide, but my immediate concern was my daughter and her head and it was clear the base attendant wasn't going to do anything or call for help. I was in shock we were getting zero assistance for a child who was not only traumatized, but had bumped the back of her head and the attendants acted like nothing had happened.

 

I had no faith in the waterslide attendants at this point. All I could do was go into full on Mama Bear mode and find ice for my daughter's head. We left the slide and headed towards the Garden Cafe to get ice. I stopped the first person I saw, who was a bus boy in a pink shirt, and I asked if he knew where I could get an ice pack for her head. He didn't seem to know what I was talking about so I pointed to her head and said "ice, bump head" and he had a look of understanding and hustled off into the cafe and came back with ice wrapped in a cloth napkin. We sat on the nearest chair with the ice on her head. DH and DS found us, went to get our things and and we all sat together on somebody's reserved chairs.

 

She was miserable and shaken at first, but after only a minute or two she was more like herself and then expressed her anger over what happened. I was in full agreement with her anger, but so relieved to hear her talking normally and acting like herself. We felt her head and felt no bump, but kept icing nonetheless. We sat there with the ice for a good 15-20 minutes. Her anger shifted to laughter as her brother did what he could to change her mood and we all started to feel better. I was still surprised nobody approached us during that time to check on her-we were only steps away from the slide stairs.

 

After icing for about 15-20 minutes it was about 1:45 and DD5 jumped up and started dancing and jumping and said her head didn't hurt anymore and could we please please please leave the pool and go to Splash Academy because she won the hula hoop contest and she wants to be in the circus. I didn't know what a hula hoop contest had to do with a circus, I was just so relieved she was feeling better and acting completely like herself. We both felt her head again and still there was no bump and she and DS starting singing the Circus song from the movie Madagascar 3.

 

DH and I looked at each other, stepped to the side to discuss and ultimately decided she seemed to be totally fine, so maybe the fall from

the tube wasn't as bad as it had first seemed and we got the kids ready for Splash.

 

I thought about what JW had said at the meet and greet about making sure to tell someone when something didn't go right. I told the other slide attendant what had happened but that didn't get us anywhere. So we decided to let them know at Splash. For one thing, we wanted someone to keep an eye on her since she had bumped her head, but we also felt like we needed to make it known that the slide attendant hadn't done his job correctly. The Splash Academy staff was excellent. They also could see that DD5 was acting like herself and they said they would keep an eye on her and we were not to worry. They said the circus act would be a good distraction for her. They also said they would share the incident with the appropriate people and see what could be done.

 

At this point we didn't know we would end up filing a full security report-that comes later in the story...

 

We had about 45 minutes before the Splash Academy Splashtacular Extravaganza Circus. Our daughter was not hurt, she had completely bounced back, and we decided we should do the same. We headed to our favorite place to chill out-Spice H2O. The chairs along the water were all taken but we had no trouble getting two chairs together in the center area.

 

DH got us our pina coladas and we sat back and started to breathe again. We talked about our shock over the situation and how grateful we felt towards Splash and the wonderful care they provided for the children. Your kids are in excellent hands with the Splash Academy staff. They are really amazing at what they do.

 

Spice H2O definitely helped take the edge off-we were still in shock over what had happened, but felt relaxed in no time and even used the nearly empty grotto to cool off. After drying off in the sun we got pina coladas to go and headed to the main theater at about 2:45 to see the big circus act!

 

Up next: Step right up, step right up, the greatest show on Earth, The Splashtacular Extravaganza!!!

 

 

 

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