Three people take a photo as they go down a water slide People traveling down water slides, especially in tubes, can be susceptible to back and neck injuries, including whiplash and tailbone injuries. (Photo: Gustavo Frazao/Shutterstock.com)

Water parks are high-up on many families' summer to-do lists, but unfortunately these exciting attractions come with a unique set of risks. In fact, water parks reported over 51,000 injuries from 2012 to 2021, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.

Perhaps the most prominent accident in the U.S. in recent years happed in 2016 at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas. Ten-year-old Caleb Schwab was riding the park's Verrückt water slide – which was named the world's tallest water slide by Guinness World Records in 2014 – when the raft he was riding went airborne and struck a metal pole, which was supporting a safety net on the slide. Schwab was killed, and two women in the raft with him were injured.

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Brittney Meredith-Miller

Brittney Meredith-Miller is assistant editor of PropertyCasualty360.com. She can be reached at [email protected].

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