Public Playground Injuries
Many organizations publish yearly statistics in regards to the quantity of injuries children sustain on playgrounds, the type of injuries most commonly caused, groups at risk, and risk factors. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the National Program for Playground Safety are just some of the organizations that publish such statistics.
Learning these statistics can help educate and prevent injury. For example, did you know that:
- On public playgrounds, more injuries occur on the climbing apparatus. Home playgrounds are a different story. Swings are the most common culprit causing injury with home playgrounds.
- About 75.8% of injury occurs at public playgrounds versus 22.8% of injury at home playgrounds.
- Fractures are the most commonly reported injury in children injured at a playground. Of these fractures, most of them involved an arm, wrist, or elbow.
- Approximately 40 deaths occurred at a playground between 2001-2008.
- Not particularly surprising is that higher risk groups were smaller children. Children younger than 5 years of age make up approximately 29.1% of reported playground injury, those aged 5-14 make up approximately 34.8% of playground injury and 0.6% of playground injuries are in those age 15+.
- Medical records indicate that most of the playground injuries occur at school (45%), followed by public parks (31%), commercial daycare centers (10%), apartment complex (3%), and fast food playgrounds (2%). Approximately 9% of the locations could not be accounted for.
It should be of note that the location of an injury can significantly impact an injury claim. For instance, most injuries were noted to occur on either school property or a public playground. The ‘owners’ of these parks are often the city, county, or state. This means that claims must be filed within six months to avoid losing one’s right for recovery.
Besides fractures, other common injuries relating to playgrounds are contusions/abrasions, lacerations, strains and sprains, and concussions.
Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer
The Edward A Smith Law Offices warmly invite you to contact our office for a friendly no-obligation consultation if your child has been injured on a playground. You can see what our clients have been saying about us on Yelp or Avvo. Please check out our website where we have listed some of our verdicts and settlements of previous clients. We can be reached at (916) 921-6400 or (800) 404-5400 via our website.
Photo Attribution: By Mark Ahsmann (Own work) [GFDL