McKoy Gets 11 Alive Playground Safety Check
Decatur Metro | April 28, 200911alive followed Atlanta attorney and children’s advocate Don Keenan to Decatur’s McKoy Park where he found a bunch of “safety hazards” including “chipped paint, small fall zones around swings, inadequate padding, debris and S-hooks on swings with gaps that can catch children’s clothing.”
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Everybody has to have a cause, I suppose.
And Don’s cause is saving kid’s clothing from S hooks, it appears. Oh, and “small fall zones”, whatever those are supposed to be. Imagine if your child returned from the park after having fallen and/or torn his t-shirt. Oh, the humanity!
[edited: no personal attacks]
They’ve already taken away our seesaws and merry-go-rounds in the name of safety. What next?
(Full disclosure: I take my kid to McKoy Park and am not in the least concerned about the s-hooks or small fall zones. Call the authorities if you feel you must.)
As an update, the City of Decatur completed a citywide replacement of all playground equipment in all city-owned parks five years ago and developed a regular replacement plan as part of that effort. We conduct regular inspections of our equipment using our own staff and an outside playground safety expert who is well-respected in the field of playground equipment safety. The most recent “outside” inspection was completed in mid-March 2009 and identified a few minor repair recommendations at McKoy. Our Active Living Director is already coordinating these repairs with our Public Works Department.
I left these same comments over at InDecatur:
I’m all for not carelessly putting kids in harm’s way but we’ve gone so overboard in engineering risk out of childhood that we’ve reached a point where someone had to write “The Dangerous Book for Boys.”
I’m not all that old but, as recently as 30 years ago, no boy needed a book to know how to do some character-building, even if stupid, things.
Am I the only one who thinks scraped knees, bonks on the head, pinched finger tips and the like are not entirely negative experiences?
Scott – You aren’t alone. Check out http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
Inspired by Don Keenan’s tireless efforts, I just noted some things about forests:
1. Trip hazards everywhere — rocks, sticks, you name it. Unacceptable.
2. Rotting trees and branches seem to be quite common in the forest. Very dangerous.
3. Wild animals let loose to scare and maim the children.
There are many other dangers, too many to list here. The only answer seems to be to never go camping, hiking, etc. Safety demands it. When will 11Alive cover this growing scandal?
I love this town!
I welcome this news. Maybe now everyone will see McKoy Park for the danger that it is and take their kids to another park.
Joking, of course, but it has been getting pretty busy over there lately, testing the patience of my 15-month old as she waits for a swing to open up!
Thanks to Lyn for the quick response – the park is great and really a treasure in Oakhurst (just don’t tell anyone).
And here I thought most of the major media outlets in Atlanta didn’t even covering ‘breaking news’ in Decatur…
So funny!
We never had bike helmets, had dirt playgrounds with huge rocks poking out of the ground – later “improved” by asphalt covering, no one had ever seen or heard of elbow pads.
Good lord, the TONKA trucks alone (made from tin and metal) had sharp edges that could slice off your finger.
PE classes with dodge ball, football , baseball …we never had padding or manicured areas in which to play. I think there may have been one batting helmet that everyone could use at recess, but no one made us wear it.
Nowadays, kids would have to wear “head condoms” so not to get cooties
or the last scary disease of the month.
When I was a kid, my playground was the outer sides of Lawrenceville Hwy when it was being widened from a two lane road to a five lane road. We made bike ramps out of the piles of highway gravel and injured ourselves on a daily basis.
I heard the White House was planning a photo shoot this afternoon of the presidential 747 plane flying just over the tree tops in McCoy Park. I hope 11 Alive is there.
I just feel sorry for Don Keenan’s kids. I bet they don’t get out much.
Funny guys. Go sit over at Egleston or Scottish Rite for a while and still crack jokes.
Everything in moderation, as always. I am 100% for bike helmets and my kids wear them for biking, skateboarding, and riding their scooters. I wear one too when biking even though I look like an idiot in it. My kids are well-schooled in street-crossing within crosswalks and only on the walk signal.
But when they get hurt falling off a swing or get a scrape riding their bikes or whatever, they know it’s not the end of of the world. We’re raising a bunch of wusses with these super-safe playground mats and sanitized world. I’m not advocating playing in the streets, but they’ve got to get off the leash a little or they’ll never learn to fend for themselves.
Canadian kids are allowed a six-month jump on US two-year olds when it comes to skinning knees and snagging themselves on s-hooks:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jphillipson/1546709276/in/photostream/
(This from the playground in Avondale.)
I’m glad you guys reminded me – I forgot that my kids are out running around in the neighborhood after riding their bikes home from school (with helmets, I’m afraid, to avoid the glances and glares from the more-cautious). Better get them home for dinner. 11Alive should do a piece on the relative utopia we have here in Decatur, where this sort of thing still actually happens. Let them try to find it happening in one of our god-forsaken, car-centric, far-flung suburbs where I’m sure that the S-hooks are quite safe. Actually, I don’t care what they do because I wouldn’t be caught dead watching the drivel that they (and the other local stations) pass off for “news.”
All I can say is unbelievble. An unbelievable overreaction by this safety guy and then an equally unbelievable counter-reaction by Dem, Left Wing and the likes to say that kids should now ride around without helmets and that if they don’t that they are “wussies.” Maybe you should just call them gay and take a bet whether they will go hang themselves in their room, and then ridicule them when they do.
Bike helmets are an easy way to prevent head injury to kids – one of the leading causes of injury to kids. No one is saying that kids shouldn’t ride bikes because they might get hurt. But isn’t it kind of like saying don’t wear a seat belt in a car?
Wow. Grownup, but no humor, in the Room.
I’m with Grownup on the bicycle/helmet issue. Same for skateboarders too. It makes me crazy when I see some kid on a skateboard with a helmet on .. but it’s not latched. What’s the point in wearing a helmet at all?
However, that being said, this playground/ambulance chaser guy seems like he’d have kids wear helmets on the playground if he had his way.
I think he’s just doing this gig to troll for business. If he has a bunch of playgrounds declared unsafe, and then a kid gets hurt there before the city can fix all the problems that he finds…… – he has created for himself a very lucrative negligence lawsuit.
It’s only a matter of time before every playground in Decatur has yellow police tape around it b/c it’s been declared unsafe by this guy. The playgrounds around here are already boring enough!
Boy – I just don’t like lawyers one bit… ..hey, wait a minute.. I am a lawyer… doh!
It’s almost inevitable that someone with a handle as pretentious as “grownup in the room” will make such a basic mistake of fact in his post. I did not say anything about bike helmets.
I don’t have a problem with making the playground area safer, but I saw nothing in that report that will keep me from taking my 2-year-old back to McKoy today.
Come on guys, the only reason we have these safety measures (and take them seriously) is because every kid who gets a scratch, not to mention a gaping head wound, on a playground is a potential lawsuit against the city, or the manufacturer, or somebody. This has more to do with an extremely litigious society than about how safe parents think their children are.
If you worked in an emergency room at a hospital, you would see the benefits of wearing seat belts and bicycle helmets. A scraped knee or even a broken arm is much less dangerous than a head injury. Castigating a kid for wearing a helmet is downright ignorant of the risks involved. When I grew up, we had no such equipment available, and I remember being knocked out by a bicycle wreck — whether or not I had a concussion, I don’t know, because no one took me to the doctor afterwards. We had no seat belts either and thought nothing of letting kids walk or crawl around in the car while driving, front seat and back seat. Is it a bad thing to want to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens — the children?
To quote from a Consumer Product Safety Commission Fact Sheet:
“Each year, about 200,000 children are treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for playground equipment-related injuries–an estimated 148,000 of these injuries involve public playground equipment and an estimated 51,000 involve home playground equipment. Also, about 15 children die each year as a result of playground equipment-related incidents. Most of the injuries are the result of falls. These are primarily falls to the ground below the equipment, but falls from one piece of equipment to another are also reported. Most of the deaths are due to strangulation or falls.”
If awareness of potential dangers and routine maintenance can cut down on deaths and serious injuries, then it’s worth it.
Thanks as always Lyn. Personally, I’ll put my faith in the city on this one.
Maybe it is “ratings week?
As I think about the real problem of no playgrounds available in much of inner city ATL, this problem seems really minor and silly.
Totally agree w/you, Scott!
Many of the playgrounds of my childhood featured those tall, steep, thigh-burning metal slides that ended on a hard-packed dirt ground. And plenty of rickety, rusty-chained swings. From which I leapt, over and over again, once I got the swing as high as I could.
Nope Soctt, you are not.My childhood playground featured an old, WWII airplane complete with loose rivets that ripped clothes and burning hot metal. I say bring on the metal and rusted swings!
Classic dem!
I was toying with a comment about no location being safe in my own backyard, but your angle is much more amusing.
And don’t even get me started on those shoddily attached pine cones that hurtle from great heights! I’m thinking we really need to get some tarps suspended over us?
Great title! “Free Range Kids”
I’m with you, Scott. Bonk your head, and learn from your mistake. While we’re at it: More unstructured time. Fewer “activities.” More playground time — gapping S-hooks and all!
On a similar note…what is the law regarding Bike Helmets? I saw a 7 year old kid wearing one on my street, and I wanted to scream out, “Take off the helmet you big sissy!!!!”
I remember when I was 10, and I did an end over end, faceplant, got knocked out, wandered to the first house I could find, knocked on the door, and asked “Can I use your phone?”
Jeff, I grew up on Lawrenceville Hwy too! I also remember when it was widened. I used to cross 5 lanes of traffic on my bike to go buy gum at the gas station. By myself. When I was 10ish.
Sounds familiar. I rode my bike to Taco Bell all the time as soon as I started getting payed an allowance.
Or… sit around a McDonalds and look at all the pale, uncoordinated, slovenly, morbidly overweight kids and wonder what happened to childhood.
If we banned airplanes no one would die in airplane crashes. And banning cars would reduce auto fatalities to zero. Of course, it would also put an abrupt end to one of the great joys of modern life: traveling. You have to balance risk with having a life, AMB. The sad fact that people get injured and die doesn’t mean it’s impossible to go overboard in the quest for safety.
Those Canadians. So polite, yet so feisty.
That’s hilarious! I’d never have thought of imposing different age restrictions on different nationalities…..
Maybe the sign needs to be expanded to add say an 11 year old minimum age to the very safety conscious Swede’s, and no age restrictions on the rather dare devil French?
Grownup, I don’t see anything by dem calling kids wearing helmets “wussies.”
Wasn’t that all Left Wing? And I’m pretty sure that the intent of about 80% of what he writes is just to rile people up. I bet he’s sitting on a patio somewhere right now chuckling, while simultaneously passing judgment on neighboring 6 year-olds.
And I gotta say, I’m a little uncomfortable with your “gay” comment.
Georgia Motor Vehicle Code (shorthand: “the law”) about bike helmets and kids, which was borrowed from the “Law Enforcement Pocket Guide,” published by Georgia Bikes!:
Bicycle Helmet[§40-6-296(e)]
A bicycle rider or passenger under 16 years of age must wear a bicycle helmet that:
• is of good fit;
• is fastened securely;
• meets a nationally recognized standard.
Violations of subsections of this Code section shall not constitute negligence or be considered evidence of liability [§40-6-296(e)(5)]. No person under the age of 16 years failing to comply with any provision of this subsection may be fined or imprisoned [§40-6-296(e)(6)].
Now, that would just be silly! Who would plan a $300K+ expense in these economic times when it could easily be photoshopped or old photos used. And let’s not mention the environmental issues here! The current administration would never allow such a thing!