A giant, 40-foot-long slide, notorious for its bumpy rides, is back in business after being shuttered for two years amid safety concerns.
The six-lane slide at Belle Isle Park in Detroit, Michigan, which went viral in 2022 after videos emerged showing riders bouncing along its ramp, reopened Friday.
This time around, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources, which manages the attraction, upgraded its safety measures by installing padding. It’s also offering new burlap sacks for riders to put their legs inside before they head down the slide, replacing the aging ones used in the past.
They also removed the wax on the slide’s surface, a move disappointed revelers said took away the speed and thrill of the ride, located in the 985-acre park near downtown Detroit.
“It didn’t do anything,” Lorraine Edwards, 66, said. “It was no fun at all.”
Jaida Perkins, 26, revealed a secret to combat the slide’s now reduced speed.
To go fast, she told the Detroit Free Press, “you lean forward all the way. I remember that from my childhood.”
A viral video of the attraction was featured on a segment of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in August 2022, when the talk show’s guest host Lamorne Morris said, “It’s only a dollar, right? But the contusions will last a lifetime.”
Rapper Gmac Cash also created a song in its honor titled “Giant Slide,” with lyrics like “Hey, you could break your back on the giant slide / You could even break your neck on the giant slide / You might even bump your head on the giant slide.”
Last year, Detroit mom Francetta Watson filed a lawsuit against the city of Detroit, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Karis Floyd, the DNR’s park and recreation manager. Watson claimed her kids suffered concussions after going airborne and hitting their heads on the ride in 2022.
With Post Wires