Recreation-Related Injury Statistics

ENTANGLEMENT STATISTICS

ENTANGLEMENT -any condition where a child’s body, body part or garments have become caught or stuck, leading to injury or even to death by strangulation.

CAUSE OF DEATH -56% of reported fatalities, 82 deaths, were due to hanging, unintentional strangulation due to ENTANGLEMENT in foreign objects, items that were not designed to be part of the playground equipment such as ropes, clothing drawstrings, bike helmets and home-made rope swings.

HAZARD PATTERN -Most entanglements involved items tied to the equipment, tied around the child’s neck, or both. According to the CPSC, “ . . ..these incidents and the circumstances surrounding them illustrate the child’s lack of awareness of the inherent dangers of using the playground in conjunction with objects that are not part of the structure.” These items include but are not limited to: ropes, jump ropes, shoestrings, cords, sashes, and leashes. Two of the deaths involved bike helmets.

EQUIPMENT INVOLVED-Playground slides were most often reported to have been involved. Swingsets, climbing equipment, and home-made rope swings were also involved.

CIRCUMSTANCES-One example involved a child who strangled when a cord that had been tied to a slide platform became wrapped around his neck as he went down the tube slide. Another case involved a five-year-old child who had a sled rope around her neck while climbing the slide ladder. When she fell from the top platform, the sled caught on the railings. A six-year-old male was believed to have been balancing on his bicycle seat while trying to untangle the rope of a trapeze bar from an overhead horizontal bar. The victim’s bike helmet and head got caught between the trapeze bar/hand hold assembly and the cord that suspends the trapeze. The helmet’s chin strap tightened around the victim’s neck and cut off his oxygen supply.

NEAR DEATH CIRCUMSTANCE- “An eight-year-old girl was sliding down a slide during recess when the cords of her hood became entangled in the poles of the slide. Her teacher was on the scene to free her, but the girl suffered a brain injury from near strangulation.”(Injuries in the school environment, A Resource Guide, second edition, April 1997, p. 11.)



Source: Special Study: Injuries and Deaths Associated with Children’s Playground Equipment, US. CPSC, Washington, DC 20207 April 2001 CPSA 6 (b) (1) cleared. The U.S. Product Safety Commission/EPHA gathers data from the In-depth Investigation file (INDP), Injury and Potential Injury Incident (IPII), Death Certificate (DTHS) and National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) Data Files; 1/90 to 8/00.

According to the National Playground Safety Institute, 44% of all injuries are due to the lack of supervision and another 40% are due to equipment being poorly maintained. Together 84% of all injuries could be prevented if the equipment was kept in top shape and if an adult was always on hand to supervise. In the real world, what are the chances? So does it not stand to reason that children need playground safety awareness education? That's where SLYDE® comes in! From high risk behavior to broken equipment, SLYDE® is every educator's key to reaching the children.

Below are statistics for recreational injuries in 2000.