The “Humunga Kowabunga” slide is shown at Walt Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park (via YouTube screengrab/WESH). Inset: the entrance to the slide (via Disney World website).
A woman alleges in a lawsuit that she was knocked unconscious on Disney World’s Humunga Kowabunga ride and suffered a brain injury.
Laura Reyes-Merino was visiting the park on May 11 when she went tubing on the five-story nearly vertical slide, which warns riders to “brace yourself for the ride of your life as you race down Mount Mayday at a 60-degree angle.”
She went unconscious after “banging inside the ride,” court documents said.
Her fiance and his mother discovered her limp body at the end of the ride. Park attendants told the family they were not lifeguards and would have to find lifeguards to help, the lawsuit alleges.
“As they were all waiting for help, blood kept coming out of plaintiff’s mouth in the water,” court documents said.
Her fiance pulled her out of the water. A lifeguard arrived and allegedly said, “They couldn’t help or touch plaintiff either,” but the lifeguard called an ambulance.
“Had defendant had lifeguards at the end of the ride to watch and help guests coming off the ride, plaintiff’s brain injury would not have occurred as she wouldn’t have been drowning in the water coughing up blood,” the lawsuit states.
The suit seeks more than $50,000.
Media representatives for Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
As Law&Crime reported, this is not the first lawsuit involving Humunga Kowabunga. Emma McGuinness sued Disney after she said a trip down that waterslide ended in injuries serious enough to require surgery in October 2019 when she was celebrating her 30th birthday.
“As Ms. McGuinness neared the end of The Slide, her body lifted up, she became airborne, and she was slammed downward against The Slide — which increased the likelihood of her legs becoming uncrossed or otherwise exposing herself to injury in using The Slide,” her complaint says. “The impact of The Slide and her impact into the standing water at the bottom of The Slide caused Ms. McGuinness’ clothing to be painfully forced between her legs and for water to be violently forced inside her. She experienced immediate and severe pain internally and, as she stood up, blood began rushing from between her legs.”
McGuinness was taken by ambulance to a hospital and eventually moved to a different hospital “for the repair of her gynecologic injuries by a specialist,” the lawsuit says. She ultimately suffered “severe and permanent bodily injury including severe vaginal lacerations, a full thickness laceration causing Plaintiff’s bowel to protrude through her abdominal wall, and damage to her internal organs,” according to the complaint.
McGuinness’ complaint says that Disney ignored the particular risk to women who want to take the ride. It also notes that had she been provided protective gear or clothing, she would have worn it.
Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
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