Playground Safety and Common Injuries Sample Assignment

L2: Assignment - Playground Safety

For this assignment I research the 9OYS located in Tucson, Arizona. The reason is because considering the Playground Safety Checklist, I determine that there are possible hazards and risk that could get repair, and eliminated in order to create and improve a more safety environment for our children to play. According to our list it is dangerous for the end of the slide to be too close to the edge, and the slides were also broken. Also the playground was built in a sand area. According to what we learn on chapter 4, we know that sand is very dangerous when it comes to falls, and could cause several injuries. Also there are slides in every corner on the playground, they are located facing north, south, east and west. According to the Safety Checklist, we know that slides should not face south because they tend to get really hot during the summer, especially if we live in a desert. Kids could get burned because of hot slides, and that is something that need to be fixed immediately. The way they could fixed this is locate the slides in an area where we know is a shaded area, and the slide would keep cool the entire day. Also there were rocks showing through everywhere and that is the most dangerous thing I observed on the playground. Children could get hit by their head easily if they fall and hit on the rocks. One thing people get angry about this place is that is always open. The gate is open 24/7 and that is not safe for any children because that means that homeless men could live on there without any problem, and a lot of people could vandalize the playground because is available for everyone without any security. There were broken slides that are really dangerous for kids, because they could cut their legs, or any part of their body and without any supervision, they could get an infection easily because they place is not clean at all. Also there was concrete under monkey bars, and that could cause any kid brain surgery because we know kids always fell on this type of playground. There was concrete all over the place, and that was not it, there was trashed doors beside the monkey bars. The doors were really big and old, and kids could get hurt really bad if those doors fell with a kid under the door. If this is not enough, there were rusted nails sticking out of some construction they have surrounding the area. Exposed Rusted nails is not even dangerous for kids, is dangerous for everyone who are in the area. Kids play without looking around and exposed rusted nails could not only hurt them physically but also could end their lives in any second. The worst thing is that parents are not aware that all this things are not safe for their children. They do not know what sand is really dangerous for their kids. They also do not look that the length of how close is the end of the slide close to the edge. The repairs are completely complex, and as a professional I would totally remove this playground in build it again following the Playground Safety Checklist and make sure that everything is complete, without any possible hazards, and risks for our children. Before removing this playground I would notify the district board of Arizona and let them know that is going one with this playground because the location of the playground is close to a lot of schools. Also I would make sure that each parent know about how a playground should be built, and teach them how to check for possible hazards. I would make sure that the climbing net and posts are not too close to the main structure, and also that the structure in build in safe ground. Put all the slides facing north to minimize the risk of burn, and put them in a shaded area. Also I would make sure that the slides, the borders, and the swing area are not close to each other to prevent any accidents. The reason is because we cannot measure how high a kid would fall on the swing area, and they could get heat on their heads if the borders and the slides are close to that area. I would also make sure that there is no opening on the slides, and that they are safe for every kid to use without getting any cuts.

Common Injuries and Safety Precautions on playgrounds

Christina Wong will be writing on the section that will analyze common injuries in adolescents on playgrounds and to implement safety conditions for the park that are going to be expanded upon. Christina is a Biomedical Engineer and it is suitable for her to analyze the current injuries that children can sustain and prevention methods within the park.

Christina Wong’s section of the report will describe the safety for and common injuries of children due to playground equipment. The common injuries will be described and methods to resolve those problems that lead to injuries will be explained. We will compare our playground to what other universities already have in order to determine how feasible it is for our university to implement and expand our current playground. This section will also include the research on the playground equipment we will be implementing onto the campus.

Primary Questions

The primary research for this section will answer the following questions:

1. What are the most common injuries that occur on your playgrounds?
2. Do you have precautions that your university takes in order to ensure safety in children when playing on your playground?
3. Is there a specific material or type of equipment used to prevent injuries in children?
4. Are there handicap specific pieces of playground equipment for children with injuries to use?
5. What are the specific guidelines that your university playground equipment follows?

Primary Research

The primary research for this section will come from three sources:

1. Interview with other nearby universities that we can compare our playground with. These Universities will include University of Michigan and Oakland University. We will be interviewing facilities management departments of these universities.
• H.Bomar of University of Michigan (personal communication, TBD)
• T.Stollsteimer of Oakland University (personal communication, TBD)
2. Calling and researching certified playground safety inspector companies to determine which playground equipment will be most feasible and safe to place into our campus.
• T.Maliszewski III of Southeast Lower Peninsula representative safety inspector (personal communication, TBD)
3. The solutions to the safety problem in playground equipment will be evaluated based on the materials and current studies of the safety of the equipment. We will follow the guidelines based on the handbook for public safety on a playground:
• US Consumer Product Safety Commission. (2008).{" "} Public playground safety handbook (No. 325). Government Printing Office. Retrieved from:  https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:kOc_onNBa7MJ:www.dcnr.state.pa.us/brc/grants/See%2520Linked%2520documents/CPSC%2520Handbook%2520for%2520public%2520safety.pdf+testing+safety+of+playground&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj19F5ZCV9seVHGJHPzNbhlhU52g7EJzjzEsThaDREYEDxQ-recKa_zKk5z-Ly6ohbEhCMykP07FLJVVBI-0ks3QaIBgRhD1aBPhAqVYzbIqPDqlk-OwP0N7BDQiHdFPsM0h_-E&sig=AHIEtbSYoqiQWDFghmIAW2mELUp3P8Yd0A .

Secondary Questions

The secondary research for this section will answer the questions:

1. How will safer playground equipment on campus prevent the child injuries around campus?
2. How will injury prevention methods on playgrounds cause more children to play on playgrounds?

Secondary Research

The answers will come from the following websites:

Phelan, K. J., Khoury, J., Kalkwarf, H. J., & Lanphear, B. P. (2001). Trends and patterns of playground injuries in United States children and adolescents.{" "} Ambulatory Pediatrics, 1(4), 227-233. Retrieved from:{" "} http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1530156705600512

Lillis, K. A., & Jaffe, D. M. (1997). Playground injuries in children. Pediatric emergency care,{" "} 13(2), 149. Retrieved from:{" "} http://journals.lww.com/peconline/Abstract/1997/04000/Playground_injuries_in_children.16.aspx

Norton, C., Nixon, J., & Sibert, J. R. (2004). Playground injuries to children.{" "} Archives of Disease in Childhood, 89(2), 103-108. Retrieved from:{" "} http://adc.bmj.com/content/89/2/103.short

MacKay, M. (2003). Playground injuries.{" "} Injury Prevention, 9(3), 194-196. Retrieved from:{" "} http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/3/194.short

Howard, A. W., MacArthur, C., Willan, A., Rothman, L., Moses-McKeag, A., & MacPherson, A. K. (2005). The effect of safer play equipment on playground injury rates among school children.{" "} Canadian Medical Association Journal, 172 (11), 1443-1446. Retrieved from:{" "} http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/pmc/articles/PMC557979/

Criteria

The criteria for evaluation of the success in safety preventions of our playground will be to:

• Observe that there are fewer childhood injuries around campus
• Recognize that the university’s reputation is improved
• Notice the increase in family life on campus