More than 200,000 children are injured each year in playground accidents. NewsChannel5's Tony Gaskins reports on what makes a safe playground. The chances of a child getting hurt at one Independence playground are greatly reduced because of the way it is designed.
Playground safety is very important to parents.
But accidents are happening at an alarming rate on playgrounds, both public and private ones. In fact, the National Program for Playground Safety found that every two and a half minutes, a child is rushed to the hospital after falling onto a hard surface. It also found that 67 percent of playground deaths occur in common backyard playgrounds. When you're at the playground, most parents are pretty much watching their kids, or I guess you'd hope they were. Playground safety expert Tony Appenzeller said that when designing a backyard playground, parents should first make sure that the equipment is appropriate for the age of the child.