opinion

Slide # 9
by Juan Diego de Obarrio

I looked up at the towering structure, a big splash issuing from its foot every few seconds. Around me, kids and adults alike were in line to climb all the way to the top. From there they fell, like bullets skimming through water, to end in yet another loud splash. People seemed happy, laughing and playing, eager to go down the ninth slide of Panama’s Avalon Water Park: the tallest, fastest, and last in the line. The ultimate slide.

I, however, looked up at this colossal monstrosity and sensed nothing but danger.

I simply refused to go up there. Its sky-scraping height was far too frightening --- at least for an eight-year-old. Looking at the people hurtling down that slide so fast scared the heck out of me. I thought I’d die if I went up there.

But my dad kept insisting. I kept telling him that I was scared and I didn’t want to go, but, in response, he’d taunt me with chicken sounds. Why wouldn’t he take me seriously? “You’ll be OK,” he’d say. I wasn’t going to be OK. I was going to die; and I was way too young for that.

Eventually, I couldn’t help but yield to my father’s pressure. I got in line and, reluctantly, started making my way up the stairs toward the top of the lethal contraption. During the ascent, I’d look to my left and see people fly by me with a loud whoosh, screams of excitement coming and going. I continued climbing higher and higher, getting closer to the top.

And I still didn’t want to do this.

Less than ten people away from my turn, I noticed everyone looking at this young fellow whose turn had come up. He was trying to do something crazy, if not downright stupid: he intended to slide down while standing up. The beginning of the slide was nearly at a right angle. Was this guy serious? He stood with his feet on the top of the slide, hanging on to the wooden bars at the top of the structure. And then he let go.

My most horrible fear materialized before my eyes.

I saw everything. He slid down a few feet . . . and suddenly slipped. His ankle hit the right edge of the slide, and he flew off in the same direction, cart-wheeling in the air, past a fence, and straight down to the ground many feet below…

The loud thud below us confirmed the worst.

Panic ensued. Everyone, me included, ran down the stairs. The yells of excitement and the laughter from before had now turned into screams of horror. I remember skipping two or three steps at a time, trying to reach the bottom as soon as possible.

After that, my memory gets pretty vague. Except for one thing . . . and I’ll always remember this.

Help hadn’t arrived yet. As the man lay there, I was compelled to take a closer look. I walked onto the grass, past the fence where he had fallen. Was he dead? Just how bad was the fall? I crept in closer and closer, until I was able to see him clearly.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I saw. His face was completely covered in blood. A large, rectangular chunk of his skull was missing, part of his brain exposed. I just stood there, staring in complete shock, until he was quickly heaved onto a board by a couple of paramedics and carried to the ambulance that had just arrived.

Ironically, as I later found out, he was one of the water park’s lifeguards.

I didn’t return to Avalon again until my school, Balboa Academy, took my class there, on a field trip, about two years ago. I asked a few employees if they remembered the incident. Most weren’t there at the time, but they had heard of it. They said he survived. Other than that, they didn’t know much.

Today, I have no problem getting on that slide. With time, I have overcome my fears. But I’ll always remember that day: the day that a lifeguard tried to surf down the ninth slide of the Avalon Water Park on his feet.

Juan Diego de Obarrio is a senior at Balboa Academy