Via @njbuzz19 comes this thorough investigation of Action Park’s legendary but infrequently operative looping waterslide and the real reasons it closed.

Longtime TedQuarters readers will remember I tackled Action Park in a From the Wikipedia post a few years ago, in which I wrote:

The biggest and best symbol of all that was awesome and ridiculous about Action Park was the looping water slide. A water slide with a loop-de-loop. How would that even work? You’re not harnessed into anything, like you are on a roller coaster. Doesn’t seem to make any sense, right? But it made perfect sense at Action Park.

The Wikipedia claims it was actually operated on occasion, but I never saw it open. And anytime you asked anyone about why it was closed, you always heard the same thing:

“Some fat guy got stuck in there and drowned.”

It turns out that was probably an urban myth, as were the stories that crash-test dummies sent down the tube to test it out came back dismembered. But who really thought a looping water slide was a good idea?

According to a former employee quoted in the io9 post, it was “some Swiss guy.”