Common Types of Playground Injuries
Playgrounds are designed to be fun places that bring forth happiness and create pleasant memories for you and your child. However rusty monkey bars, rickety slides, splintered wood, and loose swings are things your child may encounter while playing. Daycare playgrounds, school playgrounds, and public park playgrounds can all be places of leisure and entertainment that could potentially inflict harm onto your child.
The most common types of playground injuries are listed below.
1. Trips and Falls
Playground equipment can be versatile. Sand, gravel, rubber, plastic, metal, and wood are just a few of the materials that can be utilized for playscapes. Uneven gravel, splintered wood, and bent metal are just a few manipulated materials that can cause serious injury. Children are not always cautious or aware of their surroundings, especially when they are playing tag or hide n seek. Sometimes our children get their clothing caught on nails or clip their fingers on jagged metal. Trips or slips that end in falls are very common amongst playground injury. Protect your children be keeping a watchful, also keep your eyes alert for any playground equipment that looks damaged or worn.
2. Incidents involving other children
Most children do not have a good perception of weight and force. They don't always understand that playing roughly with someone smaller than them can cause harm. They also don't always understand how forceful their pushes or pulls can be. For this reason many playground injuries are a result of children accidentally harming another child by playing too roughly. On the other hand, some children are aggressive by nature and intentionally injure other children. Shoving, biting, hair pulling, and scratching are common responses from aggravated or aggressive children. As a parent or or proxy guardian you can not always watch your children, but you can watch for signs. Keep a watchful eye on overly aggressive children and injuries on children that look like they were inflicted by another child. Bite marks indented on skin do not come from falling off of a slide, they come from other children.
3. Presence of dogs
In playground located on public parks some dog owners bring in their pets for strolls in the park. Sometimes around energetic and excited children dogs get nervous and react aggressively. In the process dogs may escape their leashes, attack, and bite children within the area. Unfortunately, dog bites are very common amongst children playing in parks. Dogs have gained a reputation for reacting unpredictably in public spaces. Similarly, children can also display sporadic behavior in public spaces. Keep your children safe by keeping them away from unknown dogs. Also, teach your children how to properly respond when approached by a menacing dog.
4. Damaged or worn material
Rain, snow, sun, and other elements can wear playground materials. Lack of maintenance can cause materials to rust. Failure to replace nails or screws can lead to rickety and loose equipment. Neglecting to replace screws in slides 6 feet off the ground can lead to serious injury for your children. Occasionally, inspect playground equipment to make sure that there are no potential dangerous. If there are problems with the equipment contact the parties required to maintain the playground equipment.
If your child has sustained injuries in a playground accidents, feel free to contact us at Colley and Colley.