An inquest into the death of four people on a Dreamworld water ride has heard an "almost identical" collision occurred two years prior and a ride operator was fired.
New Zealand woman Cindy Low, inset, was one of four victims who died after an accident at the Dreamworld theme park in Australia in 2016. Photo: AFP / Facebook
New Zealand woman Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi were killed instantly from crushing injuries, when their six-person raft collided with an empty vessel and flipped backwards in 2016.
Two children who were also on board the same raft managed to escape.
The inquiry has heard a large water pump feeding the ride broke down, water levels dropped and a raft got stuck on the conveyor before two vessels collided.
Dreamworld employee Chloe Brix worked on the ride regularly and told the inquest she heard "through gossip" that a ride operator was terminated in November 2014 because of a safety issue but was never told by management what exactly had occurred.
Barrister Steven Whybrow, for Kate Goodchild and Luke Dorsett, told the court it was "an almost identical incident of rafts coming into contact" after a pump had gone off.
"I'll suggest this is what apparently had occurred," Mr Whybrow said.
"The operator … shut down a pump on the Rapid ride without verifying the location of all of the rafts.
"This led to a situation where a raft containing guests bottomed out at the top of the conveyor due to a lack of water supply.
"An additional raft containing guests has then collided with it which, continued to be pushed by the conveyor until the conveyor was shut down.
"Are you aware of that incident?
"No," Ms Brix replied.
"You were just made aware that he had not followed procedure about stopping and starting up pumps?" Mr Whybrow asked.
"Yes."
Fitter called to about '20 ride shutdowns a day'
The inquest heard the park's technicians were not taught how to assess whether a ride fault could be dangerous.
Dreamworld fitter and turner Matthew Robertson said he had to use his own judgment to decide whether a fault was dangerous.
Mr Robertson told the inquiry during busy periods he could be called to about 20 ride shutdowns in one day due to faults.
He said that on the day of the fatal incident he was called to the Thunder River Rapids ride twice because of pump failures.
He said guests were getting "irritable" after the first pump failure at 11.50am (Australian time) because of the time it was taking to evacuate them off the ride and get it fixed, so he asked the electrical department how to reset the pumps himself.
"I thought if we knew and were allowed to reset them, it might speed the process up," he told the court.
Counsel assisting the coroner Rhiannon Helsen asked Mr Robertson if the electrical department was "stretched quite thin" on the day of the fatalities and he replied "yes, that's correct".
"The electrical team were distracted that day due to other issues they needed to attend to in the park," he said.
Mr Robertson testified he helped reset the pump after the second breakdown and told a supervisor the entire ride should be shut down if it happened a third time.
He told the court he had never been told by management that rafts had previously flipped on the ride.
The inquest heard yesterday that a senior ride operator had not participated in any emergency drills or simulations since the fatalities in 2016.
Prior to the event there was also "no scenario training" from Dreamworld to deal with an event of rafts being stranded on a conveyor belt.
The court also heard there was no alarm to signal when a pump had malfunctioned on the Thunder River Rapids ride.
-ABC
