QUEENSLAND, Australia / CNN — The operator of Australia’s Dreamworld theme park has been fined 3.6 million Australian dollars ($2.5M) for a 2016 malfunction of one of its rides that killed four people.
Visitors Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and Roozi Araghi were on the Thunder River Rapids Ride at the Queensland attraction when their raft came into contact with another carriage and flipped over, tossing some of the passengers onto the conveyer belt and into the ride’s machinery.
Low’s 10-year-old son and Goodchild’s 12-year-old daughter were also on the raft, but survived the accident.
Ardent Leisure pleaded guilty to three safety charges in July and were handed the monetary pushishment on Monday.
A number of safeguarding failures were read to the court, Nine News reported, alongside a victim impact statement by Kim Dorsett, the mother of Goodchild and Dorsett.
“I cry for my children, my lost children, every day,” she said.
A 2018 investigation found that the tragedy might’ve been avoided if an emergency stop button had been pressed. However, staff at the park were told in training “not to worry” about the button and instead rely on a slower, seven second button.
Ardent Leisure operates two Gold Coast theme parks, Dreamworld and Whitewater World, as well as the city’s Sky Point observation deck.
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