Video of Bouncing, Airborne Kids on Slide Goes Viral

The wax on the slide on Detroit's Belle Isle was apparently a little too fresh
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 24, 2022 1:17 PM CDT

It's not every day someone describes a slide as "terrorizing," but that was the case in Detroit on Friday. The city reopened a giant decades-old slide on Belle Isle Park that had been closed during the pandemic, and video of people flying down it in burlap sacks—and quite literally bouncing in the air—quickly went viral (and spurred a rap that has also gone viral). Some 400 people rode it anyway over its first few hours, after which it was temporarily closed so that adjustments could be made, reports the Detroit News. No one was injured.

The problem was apparently the slide's fresh coat of wax, the Free Press reports. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said the slide was scrubbed down, and a little water is now sprayed between riders to slow things down. The Detroit Metro Times notes that on Sunday, the Michigan DNR posted a video on the Belle Isle Facebook page demonstrating how to go down the slide safely.

The park ranger advises holding onto the sack and leaning forward for the duration of the ride, and does indeed glide down smoothly. Still, the Metro Times quips, "Thanks for the tutorial, DNR, but we’re not sure those mechanics are the same for small children as they are for an adult male." The six-lane slide operates Friday through Sunday and will remain open through Labor Day. It costs $1 per ride, and riders have to be 48 inches tall. (More strange stuff stories.)

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