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Dangerous Play (Playgrounds; Carnivals; Amusement Parks; Etc.)

MrRING

MrRING

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Winds Toss Ga. Kids Off Slide
Provided By: Gannett News Service

Emergency workers took seven children to the hospital after they were thrown off an inflatable slide as it was toppled by high winds. One adult was also injured in the incident at a central Georgia school on Friday, according to hospital spokeswoman Janie Pullnot.

Central Fellowship Christian Academy administrator Truitt Franklin said some kindergarten children were on the slide when a wind gust blew it over. The so-called "funnel cloud" threw the children into the air. They landed on the ground while the wind blew the slide hundreds of yards across the field.

The owner of the inflatable equipment said in her 10 years of business, this has never happened.

"The small, I guess it's a tornado, picked up everything, five inflatables, these are heavy, these inflatables weigh 800 pounds, an 800-pound slide. It picked it up from that building and carried it in the air all the way to this fence that's the length of 2 football field, probably 200 yards."

The school rented the inflatable equipment from a company in Bonaire called Kathy's Rock, Inc. All of the inflatables were staked to the ground, the owner said.

One of the students was admitted to the Medical Center of Central Georgia for treatment. The other five children and the adult were in good condition, according to spokeswoman Janie Pullnot.
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I have a poem I wrote a while back about how the world is now safety-padded and kids are soft because of it. When I grew up, playgrounds were damned dangerous and we wouldn't have had it any other way.

Steel beams embedded in concrete. Woodchips might have been a boon, but why land on soft things when you have asphalt? "Chicken fighting" from monkey bars 12 feet off the ground, the entire goal of which was to make your opponent fall and, if you were lucky, bleed. God how I miss things like that.

If I ever have kids, since they won't be able to get hurt in school, I guess I'll have to compensate by leaving lots of sharp, pointy things laying around that they can gouge themselves on. And the backyard swingset will be made from barbed-wire with ripped denim for seats. :twisted:
 
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Oh dear...

A Lincolnshire school has banned physical playground games because pupils were copying violent computer games, making playtime too rough.

The ban has been introduced at St John's Primary at Bracebridge Heath near Lincoln.

The ban involves contact playground games like tag and kiss chase. Sports like football or cricket are not part of the ban.

The school said it had introduced non-physical games chosen by pupils.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/6355731.stm
 
This is odd but also quite sad, i guess it would be far from the first time a child has been hurt by a pissed adult, but still a strange way of doing it:

'Don't drink and bounce' warnings
Trampoline
The popularity of trampolining has seen a rise in accidents

Children are being injured on trampolines because too many people, including drunk adults, are crowding onto them, doctors have warned.

Medics from Ninewells Hospital in Dundee analysed 50 injuries seen in their A&E department over six weeks.

They found 80% of the problems were related to the high number of bouncers climbing onto the equipment.

The good weather could see a rise in the numbers falling off, with the lightest people more likely to be hurt.

Some 46% of the cases analysed by the group had lack of adult supervision as a factor, while 64% involved no safety net.


Adults, please note that lager, wine and trampolines do not mix
Doctors' letter

The team found that 54% of injuries were on the legs, 32% on the arms and 14% on the head, neck, face or chest.

The research was presented in a letter published online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

The doctors wrote: "The onset of summer is guaranteed to see family trampolines being dusted off and children attending hospital with trampoline related injuries. "RoSPA [the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents] reports that the lightest person is five times more likely to be injured.

"We have found that the severity of the injury also increases with the mismatch between child and adult weights.

"For example, a child of 20kg can experience a force equivalent to a 3.5m fall when bouncing with an adult of 80kg."

The doctors added adult supervision was crucial in preventing trampoline injuries, but did not always prevent children getting into trouble.

'Supervise children'

"We note that children have been hurt while being supervised or bouncing with adults who have been drinking at a summer garden party, for example," the team said.

"Adults, please note that lager, wine and trampolines do not mix."

Peter Cornall, head of leisure safety at RoSPA, said that trampolines can be fun and provide exercise.

"The boom in trampolining has almost certainly led to an increase in accidents, but that does not mean parents should not buy trampolines for their children," he said.

RoSPA advise selecting the right equipment, position and space, properly supervising children, considering a net or cage, and ideally making sure that only one person bounces at a time.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tay ... 079827.stm
 
This reminds me of The Simpsons episode with all the injured kids lying on the grass clutching their injured limbs.

TRAMPAMPOLINE!
 
I remember bouncy castles being a similar issue in the mid-1970s. Carefree, peer-orientated bouncing ruined by red-faced and beery-breathed adults showing-off to their equally sun-burnt and drunk friends.

I think it's just part of the whole 'adults drinking in the hot sun, seeing what children are doing and getting into the 'I'll have a bit of that myself'' type idiocy. It's the same with playgrounds, I've lost count of the times I've seen drunk adults jump on swings, roundabouts, see-saws and the horse (of death).

'Look at me! look at me! I'm 37 but I've drunk enough hot, wasp-taunted beer to think that acting like I am only 7 is really, really funny! Watch me play on the swings like it's some major achievement, even though the 6-year-old I forced off them so I could piss about had no trouble with them either. I can go really high, look!'

In the heatwave of 1976, I saw two adults 'borrow' a squeezy bottle full of water and the ensuing soaking resulting in full-on fisticuffs. :roll:
 
I've had better fun on trampampolines and bouncy castles since becoming an adult :twisted:
 
A friend of ours has a trampoline and the other day we visited her and frank a lot before she asked us if we fancy going on the trampoline, guess what?
I couldn't if I tried, was much too sozzled and felt sick just thinking about it.
Maybe I'm a wooss.
 
Ah yes, kids having loads of fun in really dangerous playgrounds, I remember it well, they would of course be banned today under health and safety legislation. :roll:
 
God yeah. I still pass my childhood playground most mornings on the way to work (I haven't moved very far in 40 odd years :)) and what were once imposing structures of garishly painted steel - the slide was, to my childish eyes, about 30 feet tall over a bed of gravel-strewn concrete - are now no higher than my shoulder, the ground rubberised, etc. And it gets tamer by the decade - my own kids played on the same playground when they were younger, and the slide, climbing frame etc were all bigger and more robust then: a lot less awesome than when I was their age, but more daring than what's there now. There's a definite move towards diminishing height and trying to keep things as ground-based as possible.

I do agree with the softer flooring (a day or three in hospital at age eight informs that one, along with a scar on my temple that's still there to this day) but surely at least a hint of risk or danger is an integral part of thrills - which is a big part of what playground equipment should be about. IMHO.
 
Meet the Verruckt, a monstrous water slide soon to open at Kansas City’s Schlitterbahn Park. Standing an absurd 168 feet high -- a Guiness World Record for a water slide -- the Verruckt straps riders into a four-person raft and sends them screaming to their doom at speeds reaching 70 mph. But it doesn’t end with that first drop, because milliseconds after reaching the soaking nadir of this hellride, riders are sent back up a second rise, after which they’ll tumble another 50 feet before arriving in the relative safety of a pool.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W7YPDU6nrg

:shock:
 
sherbetbizarre said:
Meet the Verruckt, a monstrous water slide soon to open at Kansas City’s Schlitterbahn Park. Standing an absurd 168 feet high -- a Guiness World Record for a water slide -- the Verruckt straps riders into a four-person raft and sends them screaming to their doom at speeds reaching 70 mph. But it doesn’t end with that first drop, because milliseconds after reaching the soaking nadir of this hellride, riders are sent back up a second rise, after which they’ll tumble another 50 feet before arriving in the relative safety of a pool.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W7YPDU6nrg

:shock:
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Will they ask people to sign a release form before allowing them to use the slide?
 
On mischeivous night we used to steal all the gates on our street (those council house lil wooden ones) but the neighbours always knew we would return them the next day. We loved sliding down the hill on an old car door, many an injury there, but as kids you shrug it off. Hanging from the monkey bars by your legs, with concrete to drop on, none of this namby pamby cork stuff :p
 
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Witches Hats - Deadly. Some great crush injuries.

c40186bf40182f43a5eeeb45a11eb2d7.jpg
 
Shady said:
Hanging from the monkey bars by your legs, with concrete to drop on, none of this namby pamby cork stuff :p
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Yeah, my best friend cracked open his head on a chunk of concrete left underneath the climbing frame (after I'd warned him to be careful). I had to run off and get help. He was very grateful to me afterwards.

Wouldn't be allowed these days.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Yeah, my best friend cracked open his head on a chunk of concrete left underneath the climbing frame (after I'd warned him to be careful). I had to run off and get help. He was very grateful to me afterwards.

Wouldn't be allowed these days.
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Indeed it wouldn't! If you ran off to get help these days, someone would just say, 'Where was your mobile?';)
 
I was about 6 or 7 at the time, in the 1960s.
 
Yes, it seems the playgrounds of old were built to torture the young
 
Yes, dont play in kids playgrounds, ever.
Used to love going to the wakes, not so much now, probably throw up on most of the rides.
The wonderful hot Summers we used to have, miss those.
 
The idea that we were indestructible has come from the fact we are survivors. I well recall that the local park with its swings was freely used by the youngsters from our Grammar School up until the year I started. A fatal fall from a simple swing rendered it out-of-bounds to the whole school thereafter. An early H. & S. initiative, which disappointed me at the time. :confused:
 
They might as well ban everything then, all things are dangerous, depending on who is doing what to whatever.
 
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Yeah, I recall gravel and concrete playgrounds, too. I still have the scars. :p
 
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I remember a floor polish, I think it was called Klear, it was deadly, especially when combined with small rugs, great for sliding up and down passages with just your socks on tho, i think they withdrew it, and it came back again.
 
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Do kids still make their own water slides by putting large sheets of plastic on a slope with a running hosepipe at the top? .. just wondering is all .. I don't want the police to get worried :rolleyes:
 
Swifty said:
Do kids still make their own water slides by putting large sheets of plastic on a slope with a running hosepipe at the top? .. just wondering is all .. I don't want the police to get worried :rolleyes:
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I believe you can actually purchase them these days as manufactured items. Doesn't beat a big bit of cardboard going down a dry glass slope though.
 
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