A painful lesson at the adventure playground

Jenna Connor was horrified when her two-year-old daughter, Molly, received burns and blisters while playing on the roundabout at the park last month.

The pair was at the park with family and friends on January 18 to celebrate Mrs Connor’s eldest daughter’s fifth birthday.

Mrs Connor was helping cook lunch around 1pm, when a 17-year-old guest brought Molly to her in hysterics.

“She said she had touched the metal roundabout for a couple of seconds,” Mrs Connor said. “As soon as she touched it, she was straight away in tears and I knew something was up.”

Temperatures reached a top of 39 degrees that day, so the metal roundabout, which is not under any shade, would have been scalding hot.

“We rinsed her burns in cool water for around 15 minutes and decided to take her up to the hospital,” she said. “At the hospital we rinsed the burns for another 20 minutes, before the doctor had a good look at them.”

The doctor put a dressing on the burn blister on Molly’s right arm, as well as the burn on her right leg.

The dressing had to be changed every two days and Molly had to be taken back to visit a doctor three times in the week after the incident.

Mrs Connor said her husband Paul have written to council to express their concerns about the lack of shade over the play equipment.

In his letter, Mr Connor noted that the situation could have been significantly worse if Molly had tripped and her face had touched the roundabout.

Mrs Connor said that council had given an unsatisfactory response, which indicated that in hot conditions it was up to older users and carers of young children to understand that surfaces exposed to the sun would be much hotter than usual.

“We understand that things are going to get hotter, but the fact that there is no shade over any of the equipment, except for the slide, seems a bit ridiculous.”

Mrs Connor said it was not good enough that council had planted numerous trees within the facility that will provide added shade when they are fully grown.

“It is a great idea,” she said. “But it doesn’t help much for the children using the equipment at the moment.”

“They need to install some shade or else even just some sort of caution, so parents know to watch and not let their kids go on certain equipment when it’s hot.”

Director of engineering services Doug Patterson said it was impossible for council to provide complete shade for all the playgrounds and equipment across the city.

“It is something we do when budget allows,” he said. “In regards to this recent incident, we will look into what options may be available to provide shade over the roundabout in the near future to improve the comfort of young children who take advantage of this very popular park.”