US toddler burnt in park attack

[ramonmercado]

I think this belongs here because the culprit is human (most likely) and suffers from an odd condition. Psychotic or sociopath, I wonder which?

US toddler burnt in park attack

The playground vandal was likely also burnt in the attack, police say
A two-year-old boy is facing surgery after receiving serious burns at a playground slide in the US that had been vandalised with harsh chemicals.
Peyton Duschl received second and third-degree burns, mostly to his legs, after using the primary school slide.

Vandals had poured industrial-strength drain cleaner over the ride, and opened bottles of the dangerous chemical were found at the scene, police said.

A hazardous materials team was called in to clean the site in Maryland state.

The boy will have surgery on Sunday and is expected to stay in hospital for several weeks, his mother Carol Duschl said.

With a high sulphuric acid content, the cleaner was so strong that the accident and emergency department at the first hospital the boy attended had to be evacuated, said Michael Robinson, from the Baltimore County Fire Department.

"I just don't understand what would draw somebody to do something like that," Ms Duschl told US television station WMAR-TV. "What kind of sick joke is that?"

There were signs of forced entry to a storage room at Victory Villa Elementary School in Middle River, police spokeswoman Sgt Vickie Warehime said.

She said that whoever poured the chemical was also likely to have been burnt.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6556823.stm

 

[OldTimeRadio]

If the miscreant was young enough he might not have realized the severity of the damage that would result. He might have expected an "Ouch!" and little more.

Not that stupidity excuses much, though.

 

[Creamstick1]

When I was a kid, something similar happened at the swing park around the corner from where I grew up.

Luckily the kid it happened to only recieved burns to the back of his legs (he was wearing shorts). The chute was taken away a little while later, and a whole new set of swings, a roundabout, climbing frame and chute was put in, as well as that rubber-chip stuff put down to make falling on your head safer.

A week later, the chute had been covered in tar by some idiot, and the swings (rubber seats) had been hacked to bits.

edited to add : This was all 22-24 years ago, in Glasgow.

 

[TheQuixote]

Something similar occured recently (although not in the same league as the OP) where some dinks threw 'Pregan Paste' - half-inched from the back of a lorry - around a carpark in the early hours of the morning.

The paste is highly corrosive, causes health problems in the long term and there's no doubt that they would have been covered in the stuff. As of yet, there's been nothing in the news to say whether anyone has took themselves off to A&E although the police said that those involved would likely find they were covered in burns the next day.

I'm not saying that I'm glad people may become ill as a result of it but there is a divine justice to it all.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Is "Pregan" simply a brand name or a word I somehow missed?