Protecting Children from Playground Burns

With warmer weather and summer vacation fast approaching, children throughout New York City will be using playgrounds in City parks. But recent reports about injuries to children at Brooklyn Bridge Park have highlighted the dangers posed by metal playground equipment, which can become overheated and cause serious burns (" Parents Urge Officials to Remove 'Dangerous' Metal Climbing Domes in Brooklyn Bridge Park " New York Daily News, 4/8/10).

What's happening at Brooklyn Bridge Park is horrifying.  In January, I introduced the Playground Equipment Safety Act ( A.9464 ) precisely because I was hearing from parents whose kids were suffering terrible burns from overheated playground equipment.  Common sense tells you that playground equipment is going to be used most in the summer, when it is hot out -- so it is unconscionable that this equipment is still apparently not being temperature-tested.  It's time to make this basic safety standard a requirement.

My bill would require the City to use a temperature test on playground equipment installed in New York City to make sure that we don't install equipment that poses a risk of burning exposed skin.

In May of 2007, temperatures on a playground mat reached 167 degrees, causing second degree burns that peeled the skin off the soles of a two-year-old's feet in only a few seconds. The child was hospitalized in a burn unit for four days. This is not an isolated incident. Each year more than a dozen children are treated in New York City burn centers due to injuries caused by playground equipment reaching dangerous temperatures. This figure does not include children treated for burns in hospital emergency rooms or by pediatricians.

Playgrounds should be safe havens for families, not pit-stops on the way to emergency rooms. Currently neither the Consumer Product Safety Commission nor the American Society of Testing Materials requires heat testing for equipment installed in playgrounds.  My bill would remedy this regulatory gap.