A body of a man was recovered by emergency crews after he was trapped in a pipe connected to a water slide in Arizona. On August 17, emergency crews arrived at Eldorado Aquatic Park in Scottsdale, Arizona, and that is where they discovered the body of the 32-year-old man.
Stuck in a support pipe
Fire officials said that they were working to free a person trapped in a massive pipe that is supporting the slides at the pool. The crew later told that it turned into a body recovery operation since the person trapped stopped responding, according to ABC15.
It is not clear precisely what the man was doing in the area and how he got stuck in the pipe. Fire officials were seen draining the back pool area on August 17 and said that the man was 4 feet down the pipe. The crews were also seen dismantling the pipes to get the man out.
Eldorado Aquatic Park has a lap pool, water slides, and a play gym. It is also not known whether the person is a worker or a visitor at the park. A Scottsdale police officer was making rounds in the area when he said he heard muffled calls for help.
The police officer found the voice coming from a pipe that supports one of the water slides. The officers were able to talk to the victim, a 32-year-old man said to be transient, but they lost contact with him around 2 am on August 17.
Police officers stated that the person went over a tall fence, and he was up on the slide when he somehow got into the pipe structure and was stuck for hours. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner will investigate how the victim died.
The Aquatic Center is now closed and is investigating the incident. The crews were able to get the body out, and the victim was identified as Ryan Kelly.
Death in a water park
In 2016, 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was killed in the world's tallest slide after he was decapitated. The Guinness World Records gave the 168-foot-high Verruckt, which is German for insane, the title in 2014.
The giant water slide is part of the Schlitterbahn water park. The victim was decapitated in August 2016 when the raft that he was riding in went airborne and struck metal support for netting on the slide. The two others in the raft with him were severely injured.
In October 2016, the company announced the deconstruction of the giant slide, and it took three weeks to remove the slide. The slide was permanently closed and removed from the tower of the water park.
Immediately after the death of the victim, Henry and Sons Construction, the contractor owned by Jeffrey Henry, Tyler Miles, and the park itself, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, while the designers and the contractor were charged with second-degree murder.
In 2019, a judge in Kansas dismissed the indictments. Wyandotte County District Court Judge Robert Burns dismissed the cases against three executives and two companies linked to the water park, according to CNN.
