Wearing a helmet while biking = SAFE
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our first playground safety article from our newest sponsor, East West Playground Consultants LLC. We hope that these articles will serve a great resource for NJ parents!
After a long cold snowy winter, the time of the year has finally arrived for taking the children out to their favorite outdoor playground for a little exercise, along with a lot of fun. Along with the fun of watching the children enjoying themselves on the playground, comes a precaution that parents and caregivers should be aware of.
In the United States alone, there is an average of 220,000 playground accidents yearly. This is a statistic developed from a National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, reported from emergency rooms across the country.
As a professional in the field of playground safety, my number one goal is to limit that statistic drastically. One way we perform this is by working with public playground owners such as school districts, townships, childcare centers, restaurants, and townhome/apartment complexes either as a consultant or by taking over their entire playground safety and maintenance responsibilities. Another way we perform our commitment to keeping the playground users safe, is by providing safety articles to the public giving them awareness of the concern’s and or accidents that are occurring through-out the country.
A major safety issue that has arrived on the playground is children continuing to keep the bicycle helmet on, while playing on the playground units. Playgrounds are designed by the anthropometrics of the intended user of the specific playground unit (2-5 5-12). That is why manufactures along with the owner of the playground unit, are responsible to mark the appropriate age for the intended user on the playground unit. The safety issue with the bike helmet being worn on the playground is the increase the helmet causes in the size of the head. This increase has caused accidents were the head has become trapped in the guardrails of the playground structure, causing severe injury to the child along with a few reported deaths.
As parents or caregivers to the children using the playground, we must make sure they remove the helmet before they enter the playground area. This is the only way of removing this potential critical hazard from the playground.
East West Playground Consultants LLC, 56 Navesink Ave, Middletown N.J. 07748, Phone: (732) 645-1053
Email: EastWestPlaygroundConsultant@yahoo.com
Web: EastWestPlaygroundConsultants.com
Keeping Children Safe on the Playground One Inspection at a Time!