Teen turned away from water slide because of weight, family says:
A family in Illinois said their 13-year-old daughter was turned away from a ride at Raging Rivers Waterpark after being told to step on a scale in front of strangers.
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The scale read 205, but Batton said they were told there was a 200-pound weight limit.
A spokesperson for Raging Rivers said the decision was made to prioritize the safety of guests.
Jeez, Louise, this story is out there to ding The Man, in this case the operators of an amusement park with safety rules that single people out based on physicism, which takes into account things like mass and gravity to stigmatize individuals of a certain size and to prevent them from plunging to their deaths or turning their little rafts over in dangerous conditions.
I mean, it’s been months since we were seeing the opposite story in the news (Adjusted sensors on ride contributed to Fla. teen’s death in fall) wherein the large teen in question died instead of ran crying to the news about being embarrassed.
Full disclosure: This summer I was in a water park whose new rotating water slide wheel had a weight limit. I don’t remember whether it was posted on every landing climbing to the ride or whether it was just at the top, but my family was too heavy cumulatively to ride in one raft. And, yes, the staging area for getting into the raft was a scale, with the numbers where everyone could see them.
I’m not here to pick on large people.
I am here, however, to decry sensationalist media who will run both stories in succession: The story of dangerous theme park rides killing kids who are too large for them, and then running stories about mean theme parks not allowing kids on rides which would pose an extra danger for them.
