Cruise water slide cracks open, man injured

Hard to tell for sure from the video, but it looks the riders body impacts the slide ahead of where it failed. And then it I could be talked into seeing that the impact of the body causes his feet to impact the area of the failure.

It's not an impact though... you are never not touching the slide. Certainly you'll put more pressure on it in the pull out, but this is not an impact event.

That you're always touching the slide does not mean the force on the slide is always the same.

Case in point, we were on vacation recently and while riding water slides with my youngest, on one slide there was a distinct point of considerably hard impact of my keister on the slide in a part of the slide where there was a vertical transition similar to the one in question here. It wasn't a jump or anything, just the way the dynamics of the slide played out. Like I was getting a little bit of lower G before the slide flattened out and I would feel like I was dropped ass-first on an immovable object. And it wasn't a one off, either. It happened every single time on the dozens of laps I took.

I guess, semantically speaking, one could argue that it wasn't an "impact," per se, because I suppose some part of me was still in contact with the slide, but it absolutely felt like I was being dropped onto that slide, in that one spot, each and every lap.

I didn't say the force was the same, I said there was no impact. I know you like your semantic debates. The situation you describe involves horizontal motion that causes air. The drop hatches start with insignificant horizontal vectors, only enough to keep you on the slide.

You certainly feel like your in free fall, not to mention, that drop floor has to be partially offset the bottom of the tube. Everytime I’ve ridden those slides there is a distinct point where I go from free fall to significant positive Gs at those turnouts.

Feeling like I’m not in contact with the slide isn’t exactly an unfamiliar sensation, I get it on any speed slide that has hills, whether I’m going feet first (Slush gusher at Blizzard Beach) or face first (Jungle Racers at SS, Nitro Racer at Water Country, etc.) As far as the latter goes, I know I’m actually airborne, as I have eyes that are facing the right direction to see my mat not fully in contact with the slide. There is a reason those slides have side walls.

Jeff:

I said there was no impact.

I can see his abrupt change in direction at the 2:35 mark. Looks like he takes a bounce. But even if he doesn't bounce and physically lose contact with the slide, the sudden direction change in itself is applying a greater force to the slide than if his body was smoothly moving along. And I would bet my $0.05 that the direction change of the body leads to the riders feet slamming into the slide, directly at the failure point.