Oakwood prosecuted in 2004 Hydro death

Posted | Contributed by Jeff

A theme park is to be prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the death of a teenager three years ago. Hayley Williams, 16, from Pontypool, died at Oakwood in Pembrokeshire in 2004 after falling from the Hydro Ride. The HSE confirmed it intends prosecuting the park and that Ms Williams's family had been informed.

Read more from The BBC.

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Why is this happening now? The park took precautions before reopening the ride. If I'm not mistaken, it completely retroffitted the boats with those shoulder harnesses like Knott's did not Perilous Plunge...I know a young girl lost her life, but...get over it already.
Jeff's avatar
It sounds to me like their system, or at least this one agency, moves ridiculously slow. Sucks for the family in particular, because this is being drawn out so long.
Did this occur before or after the KBF incident? I dont really recall, but if it happened afterwards, I can see how the park could be held at fault, since the industry was already aware that the restraints may have been insufficient.
Rick_UK's avatar
^^^
The Perilous Plunge incident occured in 2001.

R.

I thought the consensus at the time was that the PP accident was caused by the inability of the restraints to hold oversized guests in place. The Oakwood accident was different in that regard, insofar as the the victim was a teenager of slight build.
I thought the same, Richard. Perhaps the thinking is the refitted restraints still would have made a difference?
If the drop was high then werent the shoulder restraints already in place because if you get a slim guest then there colud be problems i mean some restriantns give me pleaanty of room but the shoulderpartys keep me in the seat and if there was a previous acident on this ride type then thererstraints should have been changed any way.

How about Geauga Lake's Pepsi Plunge last year a women got electricuted on the ride she was fine but even though she went to the hospital that incident caused one section of the park into total darkness the rides in that section didn't run. so that is very bad.
Jeff's avatar
You should stop posting. Seriously.
Hey you're not the boss of me.
You seem not to like my posts but I like posting comments about stuff Jeff and you should know that.

*** This post was edited by Twistercoasterman 5/20/2007 7:49:43 PM ***

Jeff's avatar
Well at least you stopped capitalizing every word.
Yeah you can say that.
Rsh2k7 wrote:

If the drop was high then werent the shoulder restraints already in place

No, Hydro definitely did not have the shoulder restraints at the time, just the old Intamin T bar as found on their hypercoasters.

The problem with that is that the T wasn't sufficient to hold in a rider of sufficient-enough size, as seen on Perilous Plunge and Superman at Darien Lake. Notice the new "bent T" seen on rides like Dragster -- that extra angle makes a difference. For smaller riders, the basic T is sufficient on the hypers *in conjunction with the siderails* to keep the rider restrained. On Perilous Plunge and Hydro, the middle seats didn't have those sides. I don't recall what the exact outcome was on the findings back in the day, but I seem to recall it was possible for a smaller rider to slip out from under the T by moving off to one side.

I rode Hydro and felt perfectly safe doing so. This accident was a horrible tragedy, but I'm amazed we're still talking about it.

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