Injury Statistics

Have you ever broken a bone? Remember the pain, itchy cast and inconvenience? Have you ever gone to a hospital emergency room because of an accident? Did you wish it didn’t happen? Well you can make sure it doesn’t happen to kids on your playground due to things you can control.

Many accidents happen on playgrounds as a result of things out of our hands. It happens. You can’t put a child in a bubble. Consider this though;

• Over 85% of accidents occur on swings, slides and climbers combined
• Of all the playgrounds that I’ve visited that have loose fill safety surfacing (wood mulch, rubber mulch, engineered wood fiber, etc.) I’d guess 90-95% of them have inadequate safety surfacing under the swings, slides and climbers.
• Fractures account for 40% of all injuries

If everyday a staff member raked and leveled the loose fill safety surfacing on their playground potentially 32,000 less children each year would break a bone on playgrounds in the US. This is just one example of how a simple maintenance procedure can keep kids safer and reduce your likelihood of litigation. Redistribution of safety surfacing is one reason for an ongoing, high-frequency maintenance program.

Only a few weeks ago two teen age boys in Toronto vandalized a playground in a creative and dangerous way. Among other things, they brought a staple gun to the playground and drove about 45 staples into the play equipment. Many of them stuck out over 1/8th of an inch. Fortunately the authorities caught them in the act. Vandalism is a second reason for an ongoing, high-frequency maintenance program.

These 2 reasons provide some of the logic behind a maintenance program. A complete maintenance program requires time, knowledge and resources, significant resources. It’s been estimated that over the life of play equipment maintenance costs will exceed the initial cost of the equipment. At the end of this piece I’ll provide a link to an extensive article that could be helpful if you’re considering improving or implementing a cohesive playground maintenance program. If you want to start doing something tomorrow morning the next section is a good starting point.

You can’t do any maintenance unless you know what’s going on at your playgrounds. This list is a checklist of things to consider when determining your maintenance needs. How often you use this list depends on several factors, usage and seasonality being important considerations. This is known as a high-frequency inspection. Many of these should probably be done every day while some can be done less frequently but still often.

High Frequency Inspection Checklist

• Surfacing
  • Raking and leveling safety surfacing
  • Sweep diffused surfacing away from pathways
  • Loosen and level compacted surfacing (sand can be hard when it gets wet)
  • Checking surface for foreign objects such as broken glass, trash, etc.
  • Check for lack of resiliency due to cold weather
• Structures - Metal
  • Check for cracks, sharp edges, broken parts
  • Check for bending, warping and breakage
  • Slides - check for gaps, wear and loosening parts
  • Rusting and chipping paint
• Structures – Plastic
  • Slides
    • Gaps at top and between sections
    • Cracks in slide bed
• Structures - Wood
  • Splinters
  • Decaying wood
• General
  • Standing water
  • Loose or missing bolts
  • Missing parts
  • Open or excessively worn “S” hooks
  • Lubrication of moving parts
  • All structures are secure and joints are tight
  • Swing seats wearing thin
  • Signs are legible
  • Borders are not loose
  • Exposed footings
  • Trip hazards such as
    • Exposed geotextile fabric, rocks, roots
• Vandalism – this can take many forms, be aware

For further reference consider this excellent article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1145/is_4_36/ai_74337045/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1