Scary Accident on Opening Day at Calif. Water Slide

It was a rocky opening day at a $43 million California water park after a 10-year-old boy careened off a water slide and hit the pavement. Miraculously, the boy was "just shaken up" after he sailed from the tube Saturday at The Wave park in Dublin, a park rep tells the East Bay Times. A harrowing video, per KRON, captures the moment the boy catapulted from the Emerald Plunge. Luckily, he was near the bottom of the three-story slide when he slapped down on concrete. "He got up immediately … and was stunned," eyewitness Linda Smith, the assistant city manager, tells the Times. "I was worried if he was mentally OK, but physically he just had some scrapes." The boy's parents declined medical attention at the scene.

Park officials closed the slide and two others while authorities investigate, including one called the Dublin Screamer, which boasts a "heart-pounding near vertical drop," per the park's website. Three of the slides remained open. The steepest slides are fully enclosed, but the Emerald Plunge has open sides and promises "a splash you'll never forget." Riders must be 48 inches tall and are told to cross their arms and legs. Park officials say the boy's legs were open, but the Mercury News counters that they appear closed. “We’re not going to open it until we know what happened,” Smith says of the slide. (A boy's death closed the world's tallest water slide.)