Perhaps you’ve heard the world has a new tallest water slide. It’s called The Verrückt which means “insane” in German, but in this case can probably be translated more accurately to “holyf***we’reallgonnadieahhhhhhhh!!!”
Located at the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, it was designed by engineer John Schooley, who recently tested it out and became the first human to launch himself off a waterslide taller than the Statue of Liberty, with much viral success to boot.
Schooley talked to Gizmodo about what it was like to ride the world’s only waterslide that simulates the kind of weightlessness and g-force acceleration you usually only find your way to space.
“It was a pretty exciting ride. I was terrified, especially being the first to go down it,” he said, and gave riders a taste of what they’ll experience:
“You’re gonna have the experience of almost a free-for-all drop within the first section of the slide, with a brief period of G-force deceleration during the invert of the slide. Then you’ll go kinda weightless but you’ll be slowing down and going up the hill. Then all of a sudden these water nozzles come on and blast you over the slope and over the last hump, then you’ll go on another almost free-for-all.”
I don’t know about you, but I just barfed in my mouth a little.
The Verrückt opens to the public soon, and hopefully the public will fare better than the poor guys on the roller coaster at Magic Mountain in California.
But hey—it’s been tested. By one guy. What could go wrong?
If you missed it check out the sphincter-clenching POV video of The Verrückt below: