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

hunck said:
Woman and friend broke their legs after using a swimming pool slide during a drunken night out.

Claire Vickers, 46, and pal Barry Douglas, 44, remained stuck in a flume for two hours with fractured shins and shattered feet before they were rescued.

The two had broken into Aldershot Lido in Hampshire in the early hours of August 4.

After splashing water down from the top to generate extra speed, Claire and Barry stepped into the tube together, thinking that it was clear all the way down.

But just before they came out the bottom, their legs collided with a barrier that had been placed at the exit.
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Update: .. and now they're planning to sue the water park. Of course they are.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...GMer1mOP6_em5D5FZjdgpxIz2GNmzogjWnM02xc3Yd8Nc
 
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Was there not a case in the UK where a hot air balloon or an advertising balloon broke free from it's moorings and a young child was caught by a trailing rope wrapped round her ankle. Parents had to watch as child dangling upside down was flown away.
 
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PeteS said:
Was there not a case in the UK where a hot air balloon or an advertising balloon broke free from it's moorings and a young child was caught by a trailing rope wrapped round her ankle. Parents had to watch as child dangling upside down was flown away.
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Are you thinking of the child killed by the badly-tethered bouncy castle? It was discussed on'ere, most likely in this very thread.
The workers responsible for the incident were jailed for three years.

Safe Guardian article -
Fairground workers jailed for girl's bouncy castle death

Two fairground workers responsible for the death of a seven-year-old girl after she was blown away in a bouncy castle they had failed to secure properly have been jailed for three years.

Summer Grant was killed after a gust of wind lifted the inflatable from its moorings and sent it “cartwheeling” 300 metres down a hill at an Easter fair in Harlow, Essex, a trial at Chelmsford crown court had heard.

William Thurston, 29, and Shelby Thurston, 26, were found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
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PeteS said:
No it was deffo a balloon of some description carrying her away very high up.
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You may be thinking of this 2003 incident involving a British girl that happened in Germany.
Girl, 5, dragged to death by escaped balloon
Tue 10 Jun 2003

A five-year-old girl was killed after being carried away entangled in the ropes of a helium balloon ripped from its moorings during a violent thunderstorm.

The child, daughter of a British serviceman and his German wife, was at a summer fair at the British army's German headquarters in Rheindahlen on Sunday afternoon.

Her body was found two hours later near where the balloon came down, in a farmyard 43 miles from the base. Local police said she may have been conscious during the flight. The rope wrapped itself around her arm, according to the police chief, Rainer Rostek, who had been in the emergency control room. "The girl was caught just by her arm. We suspect that she was killed by the [landing] impact."

The balloon was reported last night to have hit a power line. It was intended to take passengers up into the air for a bird's eye view, as part of a range of family entertainments at the International Day, an annual fair that attracts visitors from across Germany. ...

"There was an enormous storm with thunder and lightning, huge hailstones and very, very strong winds. These winds swept across the showground causing devastation, lifting up tents and so on." ...

The balloon, belonging to the Royal Artillery, was teth ered by seven ropes, including one attached to a car. "The wind was so strong it broke all of these anchors, and swept the balloon away. As the ropes tangled underneath it, one of them caught hold of the little girl and wrapped itself around her and took her away" ...

"The wind got up and within 20 or 30 seconds it was approaching 100mph, knocking down everything in its path. All of a sudden this yellow balloon went past. There was something hanging from it."

"At first I thought it was a person who had attempted to grab the balloon to stop it leaving its bearings. But then I thought it couldn't be - nobody would do that - and I presumed it was a dummy." ...

The child's body was found a short distance away from the wreckage of the balloon in a farmyard in Hamminkeln, near the Dutch border. She has yet to be formally identified. A postmortem examination is due and the British and German authorities have begun a joint investigation.

Her father works at British headquarters in Rheindahlen near Mönchengladbach.

The rest of the show, due to have continued yesterday, a bank holiday in Germany, was cancelled. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/10/germany.world
 
And now the emergence of an opposed opinion on playgrounds ... Germans are building new playgrounds designed to allow (and teach kids about .. ) risk of injury, and an American non-profit exec claims soft landings don't teach kids about the consequences of their actions.
German playgrounds made to be perilous to help kids learn about risk

New German playgrounds are built to be dangerous, forcing children to negotiate perilous obstacles while risking injury if they fall according to a professor of motor development.

Professor Rolf Schwarz of Karlsruhe University of Education, argues that 'safe' playgrounds prevent kids from learning how to handle risk in the early stages of their development.

'If we want children to be prepared for risk, we need to allow them to come into contact with risk,' said the professor who works with councils and playground designers to develop challenging obstacles.

It comes as Rebecca Faulkner, an executive from New York based non-profit researcher play:groundNYC, said soft landing areas and spongy floors don't help kids to learn that their actions have consequences.

'What the spongy surface playgrounds don't do is teach kids that there is a consequence to falling, and they won't learn anything from it,' said Faulkner. ...

The news comes after a group of accident insurance companies last year called on German town planners, councils and playground to develop structures that help children to cultivate 'risk competence', as many of Germany's kids were spending so much time inside amid the pandemic. ...

Play:ground NYC's research suggests that children are better than we think at assessing risk, while Faulkner claimed that over sanitising and scrutinising kids could in fact cause more accidents.

'One of the things that we have noticed is that kids are really good at risk assessing their own behaviour,' she said. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news...lous-to-help-kids-learn-about-risk/ar-AAPVGQc
 
EnolaGaia said:
And now the emergence of an opposed opinion on playgrounds ... Germans are building new playgrounds designed to allow (and teach kids about .. ) risk of injury, and an American non-profit exec claims soft landings don't teach kids about the consequences of their actions.

FULL STORY: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news...lous-to-help-kids-learn-about-risk/ar-AAPVGQc
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They just have to design them like they did back in the 60s and 70s. No need to install bear traps or spikes.
 
EnolaGaia said:
an American non-profit exec claims soft landings don't teach kids about the consequences of their actions.
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When my kids were in junior school I was there one day and noticed there was an indoor gym class with climbing frames etc, with no rubber mats underneath.
I asked about this and was told the latest Department of Education guidelines stated that low-level climbing was to be done without mats to help improve children's balance and gripping or whatever skills.

As a parent governor at the time I know there weren't any injuries from it so I s'pose it worked.
 
There's been another bouncy-castle-taken-by-the-wind accident (with fatalities) in Australia.
4 children die in bouncy castle accident in Australia

Four children died and four others were in critical condition after falling from a bouncy castle that was lifted 10 meters (33 feet) into the air by a gust of wind at a school on Australia’s island state of Tasmania on Thursday.

The school was holding a celebration to mark the end of the school year.

The children who died included two boys and two girls in year 6, which would make them 10 or 11 years old, said Tasmania police commissioner Darren Hine. Five children are in the hospital, including four in critical condition. Hine said an investigation into the accident is underway. ...

Tasmania police commander Debbie Williams told reporters “several children fell from the jumping castle. It appears they may have fallen from a height of approximately 10 meters.” ...
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FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/police-australia-tasmania-8fdf91bf55380317c5305250e0643e74
 
A little joke from Facebook. I thought was appropriate here. :rollingw:
8B50E019-A74B-40B8-90C7-1AEDAEBE0883.jpeg
 
Nails seen sticking out of grass in garden used by children - with sinister note

Disgusted residents in Swinton have contacted the police after someone left metal nails sticking up from the ground in a grassy area used by children to walk to school.

0_MEN_SD24012021SalfordNails.jpg


One resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said she spotted the nails for the first time on January 26 in a communal garden, directly across from the popular local Moorside Park.

One resident who lives nearby with her daughter, told [a newspaper]: "It's a 12 inch full-on metal nail sticking out of the ground. It's horrible.”

0_MEN_SD24012021SalfordNails_02.jpg


Sian Grant, executive director of operations at Salix Homes, said: “We can confirm that we received reports about this matter from a concerned member of the public.

"As soon as this was brought to our attention, we took immediate action and our Environmental Team have been on site today to investigate, however the nails had already been removed before we got there. We will now be working closely with the police and the community to investigate the matter further and identify the culprits.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nails-seen-sticking-out-grass-26076000

My theory? An anti-cycling vigilante, or someone annoyed by the noise children make, planting enough seeds of doubt in parents’ minds to get them to persuade their kids to play elsewhere.

maximus otter
 
1643502593158.jpeg

There are no broken bottles or bits of glass under or around the play area.
There is very little here to spin a small child to the point of dizzy vomiting.
There area is laughingly free of white dog shit.
It is lacking the electrification, a metal hoop and a bell to complete whatever Electrified Hoop Game Hellzone they were thinking of here.


I’d be happier with just more broken glass tbh. Although you may get a new generation of creative pole dancers out of this in future.
 
Analogue Boy said:
View attachment 51416
There are no broken bottles or bits of glass under or around the play area.
There is very little here to spin a small child to the point of dizzy vomiting.
There area is laughingly free of white dog shit.
It is lacking the electrification, a metal hoop and a bell to complete whatever Electrified Hoop Game Hellzone they were thinking of here.


I’d be happier with just more broken glass tbh. Although you may get a new generation of creative pole dancers out of this in future.
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I'm less scared of the fact that kids might get hurt and more actually terrified that this "minimalist playground design" might be allowed to infect future parks. Eesh.

Yeah, yeah, I grew up with steel beams embedded into asphalt and 7-8 foot drops if your hands gave out...but where's the love here? Kids have a great imagination (I could imagine us coming up with at least 12 death scenarios involving this horrible thing), but that stops somewhere, right?

My take-away from this is, "There's nothing for the kids to PLAY on."

EDIT: From the article, ""We spent 18 months consulting all the major suppliers and asked for a play area that would give similar challenges to the previous one for the children."--But did you actually consult THE CHILDREN?
 
MercuryCrest said:
... My take-away from this is, "There's nothing for the kids to PLAY on."

EDIT: From the article, ""We spent 18 months consulting all the major suppliers and asked for a play area that would give similar challenges to the previous one for the children."--But did you actually consult THE CHILDREN?
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Agreed ... If you look at the supplier's (Proludic's) catalog of playground equipment models:

https://www.proludic.com/products/play-areas/

... you'll see that the installation illustrated here is 'skeletal', in the sense it contains only the barest metal frameworks without any of the available panels or guards. It appears to be comprised of equipment from Proludic's "Biibox" series:

https://www.proludic.com/products/play-areas/

... which (as noted) seems to be designed for post-toddlers (e.g., age 5+) who can be trusted climbing on such apparatus.

It resembles Proludic's teen / adult fitness installations more than other playground installations from the company's catalog.
 
I remember growing up with “death slides” and cobbled together adventure playgrounds built on bomb gap sites in Edinburgh.
Yes we got hurt, yes some stuff was scary. And yes we survived.
However, that doesn’t make it right or better.
Kids today CAN explore , CAN use their imagination, CAN still hurt themselves.
And health and safety regulations are there to stop serious , avoidable injuries. Not skinned knees or boo-boos. Kids still learn from that and become risk aware without losing an eye or breaking bones.
The HSE (the uk safety executive) does not prevent kids climbing trees, or playing confers or running about and banging into each other.
The train of thought being expressed in this thread is akin to suggesting we remove seat belts and air bags so people die and thereby make others drive more carefully.
Which is ridiculous.
 
MorningAngel said:

New 'disappointing' Cranbrook play area in Ball Field causes complaints​

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/weald/news/newly-installed-play-area-causes-outrage-261457/
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I can't even figure out how kids would play on this. Even monkey bars are easier to figure out.

And looking at Enola's links to the supplier, those play models shown in the catalogue look much more kid friendly than that one in MorningAngel's post.

Don't know who would have approved that one. My guess is that they didn't have the funding to build a better one. Funny enough, I've been watching Parks and Rec. This totally looks like an episode lol.
 
Analogue Boy said:
View attachment 51416
There are no broken bottles or bits of glass under or around the play area.
There is very little here to spin a small child to the point of dizzy vomiting.
There area is laughingly free of white dog shit.
It is lacking the electrification, a metal hoop and a bell to complete whatever Electrified Hoop Game Hellzone they were thinking of here.


I’d be happier with just more broken glass tbh. Although you may get a new generation of creative pole dancers out of this in future.
Click to expand...
Well there’s even more competition for the cr*pest playground. https://www.mylondon.news/news/east...4w_PhSHMGD1HX2VJBeZTkMQjdVn_Rch5QrCvO5ZAdlrdQ
 

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