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Eric Gerritsen, pictured around the time he was fined $ 115,000 in Hamilton District Court, charged with obstructing a health and safety inspector who was investigating an incident involving one of his company’s inflatable slides.
The man behind a company operating an inflatable slide in Whangamatā that spectacularly collapsed, seriously injuring a man on top of it, has been involved in many other slide failures in recent years.
Eric Gerritsen, who was fined $ 115,000 in 2015 after one of his slides injured six children, said Stuff It had nothing to do with the slide that collapsed in Williamson Park last Monday.
But the facts tell a different story.
STUFF
Louwan van Rooyen broke one ankle in three places and the other broke his skin while on vacation in Whangamata.
WorkSafe NZ has directed Fun Solutions to stop using the 15m high slide until it is known to be safe. The company must also ensure that those who operate and supervise the slide know what they are doing before it can be used again.
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A spokesperson for the Thames-Coromandel District Council, which awarded grants to Fun Solutions and the Whangamatā Summer Festival to use the park, said they would conduct their own review of the incident.
The entertainment device applications to the council were made in the name of Cambridge company JTK Trustee Ltd, and a search of the companies’ website reveals that the sole director of that company is none other than Gerritsen himself.
Supplied
Louwan van Rooyen, 32, broke both ankles after a giant bouncy castle slide collapsed in Whangamata on December 28.
It was as manager of the Event Fun Unlimited company of the same name that Gerritsen was fined $ 115,000 in December 2015, after another of his company’s inflatable slides buckled up and injured six children at the Masterton A&P show in February of that year.
Louwan van Rooyen, 32, had to be airlifted to Waikato Hospital in agony on Monday after the inflatable slide he was standing on collapsed around 2 p.m.
At that time, van Rooyen was at the top of the slide. He slid down as he began to fall and landed on both feet, badly breaking both ankles.
KELLY HODEL / THINGS
Louwan van Rooyen, 32, photographed recovering at Waikato Hospital after falling off the slide.
“The bone was sticking out of his leg,” said his wife Minnette, who was at the bottom of the slide when it happened.
“It was chaos, parents were looking for their children, they were yelling, they were trying to find them,” he said.
WorkSafe spokeswoman Nicky Barton said her organization had been notified and investigated the incident.
“WorkSafe understands that an electrical failure caused one of the fans used to inflate the slide to stop,” he said.
Christel Yardley / Stuff
An inflatable slide at Williamson Park in Whangamata in 2017, shortly before New Years Eve. (File photo)
“WorkSafe has directed the company to conduct a full review of the electrical systems used to inflate the slide, operating procedures and a toolbox meeting with the operators before the company can resume use of the slide.
“We will follow up on this to make sure they have complied with this directive.”
WorkSafe confirmed that JTK Trustee had been operating in Williamson Park this week as Fun Solutions, a company with which it had been difficult to establish any form of communication.
The representatives of the firm evidently could not – or did not want – to respond to Stuff inquiries by phone, email or Facebook messaging.
The company’s apparent website, funsolutions.co.nz, is also not operational.
After the 2015 incident, WorkSafe accused Gerritsen of obstructing a health and safety inspector who was investigating the situation.
Between 10 and 15 children were on the “mammoth slide” when it collapsed.
And a similar incident occurred in Hamilton Gardens about a year later, when a similar slide, also owned and operated by Event Fun Unlimited, collapsed throwing 10 children about 10 meters to the ground.
That incident was apparently precipitated by an adult climbing the slide. A three-year-old boy got scared at the top and refused to go down. The boy’s father had come up to help, and that’s when the inflatable slide tipped over.
Those incidents are just chapters in the company’s long history of injury and fear of children.
WorkSafe files released to Stuff in 2016 under the Official Information Act show that Event Fun Unlimited or its previous incarnations had, at that time, been investigated 11 times since 2006 for violations of health and safety laws.
Investigated injuries include broken leg, hip, collarbone and rump, “loose” teeth, back and arm injuries, and a severed foot.
