Charlie Smith
SPAIN’S longest urban slide has been closed after several users were severely burned and bruised while riding it.
It comes less than 24 hours after the €28,000 stainless steel channel was opened on the Costa del Sol.
Dramatic footage shows a woman burning her bum, smacking her head and having her dress lifted up, while riding the slide in Estepona.
Meanwhile another of the slide’s users slammed it, saying she ‘hurt everywhere’ after her elbows and bum were covered in friction burns.
The 38 metre slide is now being described as ‘s**t’, while other have joked that ‘it kills children’, following the horrific injuries.
Many have viewed the slide, which has a gradient of 33 degrees, as a vanity project by the Estepona mayor, Jose Maria Garcia Urbano, ahead of the May 26 municipal elections.
Urbano proudly unveiled the slide through a Twitter video and said: “This urban slide can be used at the end of the week.
“It connects two streets and that contributes to being an element of accessibility in the city and will be the most important slide in Spain.”
It had been built to connect Calle Reina Sofía and Eslovaquia, but the Town Hall has said it will now review the new mode of urban transport.
One local also told the Olive Press that the Town Hall had closed the slide, because they ‘feared drunk people from the nearby San Isidro festival may be put in danger on the slide’.
A statement from Estepona Town Hall read: “The city council orders a complementary revision and preventive closing of the slide whose approval and safety had been certified by the specialist installation company.”
It has also update the conditions for use of the slide, including that children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult, people must not ride lying down and that the slide must be clear before being used.
It’s dangerous! Who’d have thought it? An escalator UP would make more sense than a death-slide DOWN.
What a complete waste of money. Agree with Stefanjo escalators make more sense but then who knows a Mayor with commonsense.
A past mayor of Barcelona? The wonderful knee-saving escalator to Parc Guell and the ones going up and down to Placa d’Espanya are a couple of the blessings of that fair city (Okay, when they ARE working, but hey, it’s Spain!)