A “highly distressed” junior Dreamworld ride operator Courtney Williams is presenting her second day of evidence at the coronial inquest into the 2016 theme park tragedy that claimed four lives.
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On Thursday morning, the lawyer representing Ms Williams asked his colleagues to be aware of her deep distress at being forced to revisit the October 25 tragedy, telling the court her emotional state at the end of Wednesday’s cross-examination was “not good”.
Lawyers present acknowledged the request.
The inquest is investigating the reasons behind the deaths of Sydney mother Cindy Low, Canberra visitor Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi at Dreamworld on the Thunder River Rapids Ride.
Returning to the questions asked on Wednesday, barrister Matthew Hickey asked Ms Williams if she would have pressed the emergency stop button on the ride had she known what it would have done.
“I would have done everything I could to save them,” she replied.
On Wednesday Ms Williams testified she had been told by a senior Dreamworld trainer not to worry about the emergency button, which would have stopped the conveyor in two seconds.
Counsel for Ardent Leisure, Bruce Hodgkinson, went through Ms Williams’ training on two other rides, the Escape from Madagascar ride and the Shockwave ride, for which she was trained as a "level three" supervisor, with the most responsibility for the ride.
Asked if the two other rides had emergency stop buttons, Ms Williams said yes but that some were simply red buttons without a bright yellow box surrounding.
The barrister continued to ask about Ms Williams’ training, citing her training document completed on October 25, 2016 - the day of the tragedy - on which she signed she had been trained on the opening, closing and emergency procedures for the Thunder River Rapids Ride.
Ms Williams spoke quietly and with short answers on her second day as the cross-examination continued, her voice wavering at times.
A memo issued by the Dreamworld supervisory team on October 18, 2016, told all Thunder River Rapids Ride operators to use the emergency stop at the unload area, which stopped the conveyor belt in two seconds, only if they could not access the main operator’s console and there was a risk to “guest/staff safety or wellbeing”.
Ms Williams said she was not shown that particular memo by training supervisor Amy Crisp on the day of the tragedy, when she was completing 90 minutes of training.
Mr Hodgkinson asked why Ms William signed off on her completed training form to say she had read the October 18 memo, when she hadn’t.
“I had seen a memo in relation to the Thunder River Rapids Ride,” Ms Williams said.
Pressed on why she had said she had read all of the operating manual, including the October 18 memo, Ms Williams said “there was no memo in the front of the manual”.
A photo of the operator’s manual that was at the ride console on the day of the tragedy showed the October 18 memo in the front of the manual.
“So it was in the manual that you read that day,” the barrister said.
“Yes, but Amy showed me my part of the manual and then I flipped through,” Ms Williams said.
“Ms Williams, you have said repeatedly, you read all of the manual,” Mr Hodgkinson said.
“I don’t remember,” Ms Williams said.
Lawyer Gavin Handran, acting for Dreamworld chief executive Craig Davidson, was refused permission to show Ms Williams CCTV footage leading up to the incident, arguing that Ms Williams had been taken through the day through witness statements and police video but not the CCTV.
The coroner refused the request and questioned why Mr Davidson’s lawyer wanted to repeat the same line of questioning that had been thoroughly gone over on Wednesday.
Limits were placed on repetitive questioning by lawyers, with one barrister arguing “this inquiry will never end if everybody can rake over the same ground”.
Earlier, the court heard from Ms Williams that after receiving training from supervisors, operators were left on their own and supervisors “never visited” to check on the ride or operators.
Ms Williams continues giving evidence.
