Almost two years after the fatal accident on the Thunder River Rapids ride at Gold Coast theme park Dreamworld claimed four lives, the first phase of the inquest into the deaths concluded on June 29, with several alarming pieces of evidence emerging during the investigation.
A thorough examination of the collision has been made during the inquest, with damning details brought to light about Dreamworld’s safety provisions, ride operator training and ride maintenance.
Most crucially, evidence was put forth that an emergency stop button could have been pushed that would have avoided the tragedy.
Once the empty raft stopped moving, ride operators had 57 seconds before the second raft carrying the victims collided with it. If the emergency button had been pressed, it would have brought the ride to a halt within two seconds.

Courtney Williams, the junior operator who was in charge of the ride that day, testified that she “didn’t know” it would stop the ride’s conveyor belt.
Employees had also been discouraged from using the button in a memo sent a week prior to the incident, being told to only press it if the “main control panel cannot be reached.”
The fatal accident was not the first time that day one of the ride’s water pumps had failed. Pump failures had also occurred at 11:50AM and 1:09 PM.
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