12-year-old boy dies in trip to Wild Rivers water park in Irvine, police say
A 12-year-old boy who visited an Orange County water park on Saturday has died, police said.
The Irvine Police Department said in a statement that a child at Wild Rivers — a sprawling complex with water slides, pools and other attractions — was taken shortly after 11 a.m. to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Police did not detail what led to the child’s death, but said it didn’t appear to be “water-related.”
In a statement posted on Instagram, Wild Rivers said the child — a 12-year-old boy — suffered a medical “incident” outside of a pool. “Despite the swift response from our team and emergency services,” the park wrote, “he sadly passed away later at the hospital.”
Wild Rivers reopened in 2022 in a new, larger location at Orange County’s Great Park, with 20 slides and attractions and a large wave pool. The public parkland is leased to Wild Rivers, which shares part of its revenue with the city of Irvine.
The original Wild Rivers water park was open from 1986 to 2011, when it closed to make way for housing development.
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