As children go back to school, playground injuries will be more common. Each year, emergency departments treat more than 200,000 children for playground injuries, but not every injury warrants medical treatment – or legal action.
What Are the Most Common Playground Injuries?
The most common playground injuries include cuts, bruises, broken bones, concussions, and internal injuries. Children can fall off swing sets and other outdoor equipment, break their legs on slides, and suffer all kinds of playground accidents.
How Can Playground Injuries Be Prevented?
Because kids are bound to fall while running and playing, playground design and maintenance are the most important factors in preventing playground injuries. Without proper playground maintenance, children can fall on an unsafe surface, cut themselves on a sharp or rusty slide, or otherwise get seriously injured.
Playgrounds must be designed for running, jumping, and falling safely.
Apart from maintenance and design, supervision is the key to preventing playground injuries. Parents or other responsible adults should watch their children make sure they are not pushing their own limits or doing anything dangerous.
For example, children love to twist themselves in swing chains, but this can lead to strangulation. Swing set accidents are tragically common on home playgrounds, so make sure you are always keeping a careful eye on children at play.
What Injuries Warrant Legal Action?
Children often come home from the playground with cuts and bruises, and you don’t need to sue anyone over this – it’s part of growing up. If your child ends up with a deep, infected gash, however, you may want to start asking questions. Similarly, you may want to look into what happened if your child breaks a bone, gets concussed, or winds up in the hospital.
The playground injuries that may warrant legal action include severe fractures, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), spinal cord injuries (SCI), and serious falls that result in internal damage.
Who Is Liable for Playground Accidents?
If your child is hospitalized or seriously injured after playing on the playground, you want to know who is to blame. The first question to ask yourself is: was your child under your care? If the answer is yes, the party responsible for designing or maintaining the playground may be liable for your child’s injury.
Look for physical signs that something is wrong. For example, you may see a hard landing service, a rusting slide, or another obvious hazard. Even if nothing stands out, you should speak to an attorney about hiring an investigator. Playgrounds must adhere to strict safety standards, and something as simple as not having enough woodchips in a fall area could justify a personal injury lawsuit.
If someone else was in charge of your child at the time of the playground accident, you will need to determine exactly what happened. For instance, if your child was at school when they got hurt, what was the teacher doing when the accident happened? If your child got hurt at a friend’s house, were parents supervising the children’s play?
Failure to supervise children on playgrounds is serious and could result in serious legal consequences for those responsible.
Whether your child’s injury was caused by defective playground design, inadequate maintenance, or negligent supervision, you should speak to an attorney about your rights and legal options.
File a Lawsuit with Rourke and Blumenthal LLC
Our firm has more than 150 years of combined experience handling personal injury cases of every shape and size. Whether we need to file a premises liability lawsuit against the playground owners or a negligence claim against a school district or babysitter, we will work hard to recover compensation for your family.
Our reputable attorneys can handle complex cases that other lawyers cannot, and we do not charge legal fees unless we recover money for you.
At Rourke and Blumenthal LLC, your child’s welfare is important to us. Call us at (614) 321-3212 or contact us online for a free consultation.