A death that must never be repeated
A Coronial report into the death of an eightyear-old at the 2014 Royal Adelaide Show has recommended a national reform of the regulation of show rides. Nigel Benton reports A report into the death of an eight-year-old at the Royal Adelaide Show in 2014 by South Australia’s Deputy Coroner has called for national reform of carnival show ride regulations. Released on 8th June 2022, the Coronial report into the death of Adelene Leong called for improved regulation of ‘high-energy’ rides among a number of findings. The eight-year-old died after she was flung out of the Airmaxx 360 ride at a speed of at least 100km/h in front of her family and shocked onlookers. Just 90 seconds into the ride she slipped out of restraints and was thrown into the air before landing on the ground headfirst in front of her mother and multiple witnesses.
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She died from multiple injuries. Deputy State Coroner Ian White said South Australia needed to be the leader in convincing other states and territories to improve the operation of high-energy rides. He said the inquest revealed there were missed opportunities to change Adelene’s fate that day, advising “the evidence of these missed opportunities is likely to produce understandable reactions of frustrations and despair to the public. “There needs to be a meaningful response to honour Adelene’s short life.” “Her death must be a cause for fundamental change in the operation and governance of high energy rides in Australia. “South Australia must be the leader in convincing all jurisdictions to agree and implement the necessary actions that will ensure that the wishes of Adelene’s mother are honoured so that ‘such an event will not happen again.’” The inquest heard the ride was purchased from Spain by amusement industry operators Jenny-Lee Sullivan and her husband Clinton Watkins, of CJ and Sons Pty Ltd and imported into Australia in April 2013. However, on arrival to Australia, engineers undertook the wrong type of inspection. Before it was given the approval to operate, it had to get design registration and plant registration which ensures rides that operate in Australia do not have any design flaws. However, the inquest heard it never went through the process of design registration and the registration number assigned to it belonged to a different ride. Sullivan and Watkins, borrowed more than a $1 million from Federal Government agency Indigenous Business Australia for the purchase, with Deputy Coroner White concluding that the application for funding was “flawed and unrealistic”. In their business plan, the couple asked for $1,025,250 to be repaid over 10 years in order to buy a showride called Smashing Jump. On 1st May 2012 the loan application was accepted with the pair using their house and business as collateral. However, instead of buying the Smashing Jump, they instead used the money to buy a similar ride, the Airmaxx 360. In addition, from the start the loan was putting financial stress on the pair. It was 10 months from the time they were given the money to when the ride arrived in the country – a period during which they still had to make repayments on the loan. With a business plan that required the
