Playground Safety

Well-designed playgrounds have
built-in safety features.

One child is injured every 2-1/2 minutes in the United States on playground equipment. And each year, about 200,000 of those children end up in hospital emergency rooms because of their injuries -- many involving falls from too-high equipment onto too-hard surfaces. Nearly 70 percent of the injuries happen on public playgrounds, which recent studies show may be badly designed, with inadequate protective surfaces and poorly maintained equipment.

How can you best protect your child? Make sure the equipment is safe for play and that children are playing safely, says Donna Thompson, director of The National Program for Playground Safety, a non-profit group funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Using your common sense and recognizing common playground hazards are the best ways to prevent injuries, say safety experts.

The types of playground equipment contributing to the most injuries are:

• Swings
• Climbers, such as monkey bars, overhead ladders, and rings
• Slides