Incident Report: Craig Hurley

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Craig Hurley was on holiday in Egypt at the Tropicana Grand Azure Hotel when, on 17 September 2009, he descended a waterslide and sustained severe injuries, including a broken neck and head wound. 

The circumstances of the accident were that the waterslide was manufactured by Sweden Hydrosport AB ('Hydrosport'), which had installed waterslides in over 30 countries throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. Swedtrade was a distributor of Hydrosport waterslides and supplied the black whole water slide to the Tropicana Hotel in late 2004. The waterslide had an average inclination between 13 and 20 per cent, excluding the final part. Users could achieve an average speed of 10 metres per second and a maximum speed of 14 metres per second. 

Mr Hurley descended the waterslide and struck his head, firstly on the slide proper at the final bend and secondly on the pool bottom. The court found that the slide complied with the European Standard for waterslides (EN 1069-1), and it was more likely than not that Mr Hurley had descended the waterslide head first. Expert evidence in the case supported that the waterslide could not turn riders around who had begun descending the slide feet-first. Mr Hurley had a head injury to his forehead, which was thought to have been caused by colliding with the splashdown pool bottom. 

Parker J said at [32]:  

"As the facts demonstrate, a user of the slide could be expected to expose himself to a significant and obvious risk of injury and to be injured as a result of such exposure even if the slide was, in all material respects, safe for use and the defendant had been in no way negligent, namely in the case where the user had himself chosen to travel down the slide and to exit head first."

The claim was dismissed. 

References

Craig Hurley v TUI UK Limited [2014] EWHC 4774 (QB). 

Citation. Jacklin, D. 2024.  Incident Report: Craig Hurley. Water Incident Research Hub, 20 September. Available at: https://www.thewirh.com/blog/craig-hurley accessed 20 September 2024.