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A Quebec woman who says she suffered a broken vertebrae on a ride at Calypso Water Park was the first Calypso customer to testify at the water park’s trial on safety violations.
Sophie St. Jacques, 50, had never ridden on a water slide before visiting Calypso with her husband, son, stepson and her son’s friend in July 2011. They chose a ride that looked tame — the Steamer — and St. Jacques ended up riding with a stranger on one of the two-person inflatable rafts.
“It was pretty slow, smooth. I wasn’t scared at all,” St. Jacques testified Tuesday. Then the raft plunged into a “toilet-bowl” like mid section of the ride where the raft circled several times before falling backward into another enclosed tube for the final descent.
“I felt the water rushing in fast and there was a big, big noise — a crazy noise — then I woke up and I was in the pool,” she said.
The raft had flipped and St. Jacques and her partner had been thrown off. St. Jacques slid into the knee-deep pool on all fours, with a searing pain in her neck.
“It felt like there was a big flame on my neck and back,” she testified. “It was like a blowtorch.”
Calypso is on trial on 20 charges under Ontario’s Technical Standards and Safety Act, involving the Steamer and several other rides and a number of alleged breaches of training and on record-keeping violations in the summers of 2011 and 2012. The park has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
When attendants of the Steamer realized that St. Jacques had been hurt, they called in first aid responders who immobilized her with a neck brace and placed her on a stretcher. She was taken to the park’s infirmary, then by ambulance to The Ottawa Hospital’s General Campus, where she underwent a CT scan. Doctors found her C2 vertebrae had been fractured in two places, she testified.
St. Jacques said she wore a halo vest for more than three months as she recovered. St. Jacques and her husband, Marc Bertrand, have launched one of several lawsuits against Calypso by patrons who allege they were injured at the park.
Earlier in the trial, Calypso’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, had argued against allowing any testimony from injured patrons, saying that the park accepted that they had been injured but that the testimony would be “sensational but irrelevant” to the Safety Act charges.
Justice of the Peace Julie Lauzon ruled last week to allow limited testimony from patrons. But she cautioned the trial could not be a “forum for emotions, feelings or consequences not relevant to the case.”
The trial continues on Wednesday.
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
Sophie St. Jacques, 50, had never ridden on a water slide before visiting Calypso with her husband, son, stepson and her son’s friend in July 2011. They chose a ride that looked tame — the Steamer — and St. Jacques ended up riding with a stranger on one of the two-person inflatable rafts.
“It was pretty slow, smooth. I wasn’t scared at all,” St. Jacques testified Tuesday. Then the raft plunged into a “toilet-bowl” like mid section of the ride where the raft circled several times before falling backward into another enclosed tube for the final descent.
“I felt the water rushing in fast and there was a big, big noise — a crazy noise — then I woke up and I was in the pool,” she said.
The raft had flipped and St. Jacques and her partner had been thrown off. St. Jacques slid into the knee-deep pool on all fours, with a searing pain in her neck.
“It felt like there was a big flame on my neck and back,” she testified. “It was like a blowtorch.”
Calypso is on trial on 20 charges under Ontario’s Technical Standards and Safety Act, involving the Steamer and several other rides and a number of alleged breaches of training and on record-keeping violations in the summers of 2011 and 2012. The park has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
When attendants of the Steamer realized that St. Jacques had been hurt, they called in first aid responders who immobilized her with a neck brace and placed her on a stretcher. She was taken to the park’s infirmary, then by ambulance to The Ottawa Hospital’s General Campus, where she underwent a CT scan. Doctors found her C2 vertebrae had been fractured in two places, she testified.
St. Jacques said she wore a halo vest for more than three months as she recovered. St. Jacques and her husband, Marc Bertrand, have launched one of several lawsuits against Calypso by patrons who allege they were injured at the park.
Earlier in the trial, Calypso’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, had argued against allowing any testimony from injured patrons, saying that the park accepted that they had been injured but that the testimony would be “sensational but irrelevant” to the Safety Act charges.
Justice of the Peace Julie Lauzon ruled last week to allow limited testimony from patrons. But she cautioned the trial could not be a “forum for emotions, feelings or consequences not relevant to the case.”
The trial continues on Wednesday.
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
