Shade structures can help to prevent play equipment burn

Playground burn is a new incident in todays playgrounds, with excessive heat there are more hidden dangers that parents were not conscious of before.  One tragic incident occured on Memorial day this year in New York City at Carl Shultz Park on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where a young boy suffered tragic playground burn from dangerously hot playground mats.  Rubber mats are usually used to protect children when they fall, but who would have thought that while protecting children in one way could become a hazard in other ways.  These rubber mats become very hot when the blistering sun causes the mats’ temperatures to rise to high levels. 

Will Casson a young boy innocently at play experienced excruciating pain when he jumped of the playground onto the rubber mats, where his feet instantly burned.  The damage was so severe that the soles of the boys feet were dripping off the bottom of his feet.  The temperature was later tested to see why this terrible accident had happened, and in comparison found that the concrete pavement was 100 degrees while the rubber mat temperatures was 134 degrees, 34 degrees hotter than the concrete!  This awful accident has given rise to a series of debates on playground safety measures how to protect children from one injury while causing another. 

We at Shade4Schools hearts go out to Will and his family, this is a tragic incident and we pray for a speedy healing.  I felt this as though it was my own child.  For information on how you can prevent this from happening at this playground contact us and we will help you fundraise for a structure that can minimize problems of this nature.  Contact Gwen on 210-577-0293 or info@shade4schools.com.