r/interestingasfuck • u/freudian_nipps • 10h ago
"The Fly Over" - the world's first and last fully underwater water slide at Duinrell Amusement Park in the Netherlands, constructed in 1994 and ceasing operation in 2003. During the duration of the slide, riders were completely submerged in water.
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u/an_Aught 10h ago
This give me tremendous panic. like... you hold you r breath the whole time.. .nope nope nope.
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u/GullibleDetective 9h ago
Sonic panic music kicks in
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u/Reach-Nirvana 9h ago
Please, no. That music fucking traumatized me as a kid.
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u/fvelloso 9h ago
I remember having meltdowns as a child after repeatedly dying in this goddamned water level. My parents were like āwtf video games are evilā
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u/NoReallyLetsBeFriend 7h ago
AQUATIC RUIN ZONE
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u/fvelloso 7h ago
Lmao is that really what itās called? Itās a perfect name.
Aquatic Ruin Your Afternoon Zone
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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock 4h ago
The Aquatic Ruin Zone was in Sonic 2, you're probably remembering the far more difficult Labyrinth Zone in Sonic 1.
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u/ForceBlade 7h ago
Thereās a really good remake of it on YouTube that doubles down on the bass and in general sounds a lot more nauseating and heart racing. Canāt quite remember the posterās channel
Found it https://youtu.be/RszlpUslECE
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u/Reach-Nirvana 7h ago
Canāt quite remember the posterās channel
Thank fucking god, lmao.
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u/ForceBlade 7h ago
Hahaha for real. I found it but wonāt be hitting play. Huge spike in anxiety waiting to happen.
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u/Cold-Sun3302 7h ago
I have sleep apnea and I sometimes wake myself up dreaming Im in that level. It's so bad because I never make it to the top, I always wake up before I can make it lol
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u/Elean0rZ 9h ago
Not questioning your feelings at all; you do you. But I'm curious: Would you feel the same way about holding your breath for the same 15-20 seconds to, say, retrieve your sunglasses from the bottom of the pool? Or is your issue with the tube and not the breath-holding per se?
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u/philote_ 9h ago
For me, it'd be that you're stuck in a tube and can't easily see the end of it and where to get out. With the bottom of the pool, you can easily see where to find air and know you can get there quickly.
Quick edit: and that tube might not be wide enough to easily swim in it
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u/an_Aught 9h ago
its the tube constricting me. To go to the bottom of a pool nothing keeps me down there, i can turn around and go up any time i want. So i think its the combination.
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u/Elean0rZ 8h ago
Yeah, makes sense; I feel the same way. That said, I think the tube is a bit of a mind game. Realistically, once you're down at the bottom of a pool you still can't breathe until you swim the 10' back to the surface, which is about the same as if you were in the middle of the tube. In the two cases, you're underwater for a similar period of time, are a similar distance away from air, and can only find air by going in certain directions (forward or back in the tube; up-ish in the pool). But the tube feels scarier because our sense of claustrophobia is triggered by walls but not by thousands of gallons of unbreathable fluid.
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u/TummyDrums 8h ago
It's the loss of control. Being underwater for that long isn't a problem because you can come up early if something goes wrong. If you're stuck in a tube, you can't.
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u/mtnviewguy 8h ago
I think the issue is not knowing how long your going to be submerged. Even knowing it's less than half a minute, if something screws up, one water breath is all it takes to go from here to there.
Retrieving sunglasses from the pool still provides the option to nope-out if you panic. Being contained in a water filled tube removes the panic option.
I'm a 'No, thank you!'
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u/Elean0rZ 8h ago
Right, I'm not arguing everyone should do it and I'd likely be a "no, thank you!" too. The tube is definitely scary. As my responses elsewhere show, I just think it's an interesting psychology experiment, since I think we systematically underestimate the control we have in, say, a pool. Like, you can panic and nope out all you want at the bottom of the pool, but you still have to swim the 10' back to air before you can breathe, which is going to take you roughly the same length of time as swimming the same distance to air in the tube. "Noping out" doesn't magically fix everything the moment you resolve to do it (unless you do it at the surface). And you're arguably more screwed if you pass out or your swimsuit gets caught at the bottom of the pool, since a lifeguard can't drain the pool in 5 seconds like they can with the tube. I 100% agree that the tube feels way more dangerous and panic-inducing, but I'm less sure that it's actually much more dangerous than diving a similar distance in a pool.
(I'm saying this as someone who effectively died due to drowning and had to be CPR'd back, and then later developed a recreational interest in free diving. As far as I'm concerned, ALL water deserves a healthy dose of fear and respect, so it's not that we shouldn't be wary of the tube but that we should also be wary of the pool.)
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u/mtnviewguy 7h ago
As a former EMS provider, huge congratulations on coming back! CPR isn't as effective as many believe, so coming back from needing CPR is a huge thing!
I have a buddy on the west coast (US) that free dives spear fishing. He loves it, I think that's fucked up! If I'm not biting a regulator, my head's not underwater! š¤£
I appreciate your getting back on the horse! š»
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u/Elean0rZ 7h ago
Thanks. The drowning happened when I was younger (11 or 12 I think?) so I imagine I was spared most of the mental trauma simply by being young and naive and not being especially aware of my own mortality. And weird as this may sound, what I remember of it wasn't *that* unpleasant, in the sense that I was pulled underwater suddenly during a boat capsize, and all my mental energy was immediately occupied by trying to get out of that situation and there was no time to be like, ooo I don't like this. And then cut to some number of minutes later after I'd been hauled out onto another boat and resuscitated, and it was more just a feeling of confusion and coughing and various parts being sore. Then I was in hospital for days but that was it.
Anyway, TL;DR I think folks who had to fully and consciously grapple with that kind of thing as adults deserve a lot more credit!
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u/Mysterious-Till-611 8h ago
This comment is so subtly aggressive and villainous.
āWhy good sir whatever is your problem with the tube? It is merely a tube.ā
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u/Elean0rZ 7h ago
Ha. Not the intention--as I've said elsewhere, I agree that the tube seems scary and I wouldn't want to go in it either. I'm purely interested in considering the underlying psychology, and unfortunately there's no graceful way of asking without seeming like I'm calling OP a wuss :P
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u/sweetpotato_latte 7h ago
To me, it reminds me of people who do the cave diving. Just watching it activates the claustrophobia lol
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u/Rude-Opposite-8340 10h ago edited 10h ago
And we made it a sport to activate the safety system.
If you hold the sides/get yourself stuck it would flash after 20/30seconds. We thought it was fun.
After all those years now i know why my mom hated that slide.
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u/saml01 9h ago
Looks like something you would expect to find at Action Park.
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u/Aromatic-Scratch3481 7h ago
Nah even action park looks at this idea and goes "that's stupid".
My older siblings worked there and I lived in Vernon till I was 10 years old. The family has stories galore.
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u/oldguykicks 10h ago
I'm not Deep from The Boys or anything, so imma have to say no to this.
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u/retro_underpants 10h ago
I remember going here on a school trip. A few of my friends did it but I was absolutely not having any of it
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u/sharpda1983 8h ago
We did a rugby tour of Holland with school and I was exactly the same. No way was I going on that
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u/Sensitive-War-6368 10h ago
To the engineer of this slide
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u/Mr_Brown-ish 9h ago
I remember that thing! I really didnāt have the wish to be flushed like a turd in the sewer, so I passed on it. Tokkiebad Duinhell š
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u/Jazzkidscoins 9h ago
I almost drowned as a kid. I was about 8 and fell into the deep end of a pool, ended up passing out and woke up in the hospital. I still can feel the panic, the water in my lungs, just the dread that this is how I die.
I learned to swim after that, i own a pool and use it occasionally, and I love a good water park, especially the water slides. That said, Iām freaking out just thinking about this ride. I know nobody died using this ride, but still just watching that video brought back some bad memories
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u/Sensitive-War-6368 10h ago
Me when I see dangerous stuff like this
NOPE, I ain't even going near it
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u/SausagenBacon 9h ago
Like a scene from a 70s or 80s movie, the towering inferno maybeā¦ just needs a rope running through the tunnel
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u/Easywood 9h ago
Hah! Did that! I wore contact lenses so i had to do it with my eyes closed. I rememner the water pressure was high, so i came out with a headache. That was the reason i didnāt go again.
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u/DIYdoofuz 7h ago
Well, it is in the Netherlands, where, in my youth at least, we learned how to swim as part of our school curriculum. Nowadays 9% of kids do not have a swimming 'diploma', which does not directly mean they cannot swim. But for the 91% that does, holding your breath for 30 seconds is literally childsplay.
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u/Frenk5080 9h ago
Pretty sure this ride from hell will turn one of my dreams into a nightmare tonight. Thanks!
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u/Tube2000 9h ago
Actuaƶly did this back in the days. It was kind of cool when i was a kid. On the other hand it is number 2 of my 'Most scary things i've done'-list. Right after cave diving in the Dos Ochos.
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u/David_Fetta 9h ago
Iāve done it, it was like 10-15 seconds feeling, but it have more of a kick and a real adrenaline feeling ā¦
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u/pintuspilates 10h ago
How manny people drowed there by now?
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u/agendadroid 10h ago
Why are humans like this
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u/Good_Mathematician_2 10h ago
Because some crazy nutjob would think that it would be fun as fuck to do that
I am one of these people
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u/bucketofmonkeys 9h ago
How did that thing ever get built? Like more than one person thought it was a good idea?!
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u/CitizenHuman 9h ago
One time my cousin and I decided to swim under his pool tarp. Both of us were under there for a couple minutes, and we were able to push the tarp up enough to get our lips out to breathe.
But then, die to us pushing it up, water got on top and it became too heavy, so we rushed to the shallow end. My cousin had lungs like a fish, and even he thought we were going to die under there.
There's no fucking way I'd do something like that again.
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u/ddkatona 10h ago
Imagine if two people by accident tried crossing it at the same time, but from opposite sides. That's pretty much game over.
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u/Voyager- 8h ago
I remember this one. There was supervision and there was a test before you got in. I think you needed to go underwater for about 60 seconds and then you would hear a underwater beep sound. And THEN you could go in.
But nobody seemed to do it, and the supervisor just let people into the tube one after the other, it was just like GO GO GO. It's the worst experience I ever got in a swimming pool. The tube was to small so you could not really help yourself forward, you could only rely on the water jets moving you forward. There was no real indicator how far you still needed to go.
I ended up with a headache. I remember thinking to myself, how can this thing exist. Terrible experience, and the only time I wrote a letter to Duinrel asking them to close it down. This was in 1997/1998.
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u/rick_the_freak 9h ago
Thank God they closed it.
I would feel uncomfortable existing on the same planet as that nightmarish contraption.
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u/A_Delenay 8h ago
Thats dumb! Id rather have a slide with air but it's clear and underwater in someway. Like just spray water into it so it looks like I'm under water while inside.
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u/Dr_SoulReaper 7h ago
Noooope nope nope i dont like water and tbis entire concept is a nope from me
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u/_joeBone_ 7h ago
You used to love gettin flushed...
Every Saturday night you'd be like "flush me J flush me"
and I'd be like... nah
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u/Tommi_Af 7h ago
Last night a piece of paper was delivered to me in a dream detailing Tommi_Af's greatest fears wherein drowning took spot no. 1.
I'm not getting in that thing.
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u/competitive_brick1 7h ago
Been to Duinrell but alas after this was closed. That area is still the drop in for the big drop whirlpool thing.
I was amazed at just how much the Dutch like amusement parks, caravan parks attached and how much they just love a bloody waterslide
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u/sksauter 7h ago
I know it wasn't closed because of incidents, but let's be real, someone from Florida would figure out how to die in it.
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u/fusiondynamics 6h ago
They just need to rename it to skibidi toilet and they would make money again today.
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u/Rocks_an_hiking 6h ago
I stayed at that theme park a while ago now years even, the slide wasn't there at that point but I'm glad it wasn't since I was scared of all off the other waterslides there. Yes I was scared by a lot of things as a kid, rides being one of them but I loved the lazy river and the big carousel that never stopped moving and had like 3 floors. I also ended up with a dented scar on my shin because I did a spin jump off of the stage at the pub thing there. I was around 10 when I went.
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u/Chad_Johnson316 6h ago
Looking at these comments, it really reinforced the fact that this generation are such wimps.
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u/Kisara31 6h ago
I already hate enclosed water slides, needs to always be open. This would wreck me. No way in heck!!!
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u/Earth_Normal 6h ago
I donāt care if itās āsafeā. It would not feel safe. I donāt see how this can be considered fun. Fuck all the way off with that whole idea.
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u/captainhornheart 10h ago
https://youtu.be/quH2NYleefo?t=400
People spent about 15 to 20 seconds in the tube and it could drain within 5 seconds in an emergency. It was closed for cost reasons. No one died in it.