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Citizen complaint of the day: The saggiest bridge in Boston

Saggy bridge

A concerned citizen parent complains:

Frog Pond playground. Is this ramp supposed to hang so far below handrails? Seems dangerous. Have seen lots of kiddos fall through, including mine today.

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Comments

jeez, i specifically seek these out for my 15 month old... it's good practice in muscle use, balance, recognizing and evaluating risk, etc.

I mean the floor below it is made out of rubber. I don't see the harm in letting the kid bounce of it from time to time.

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That particular piece of equipment sometimes has rope sides instead of rigid ones. I don't think they're "handrails" as the overprotective parent suggested, but rather just for spotting oneself and for giving the visual suggestion that it's a bridge to cross, rather than an open platform to go cannonballing onto from all angles.

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What??? They'll fall, like, 12-inches. In my day, playground falls involved at least three feet. Your kids fall farther from a chair.

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We didn't have any of your frou-frou rubber padding or plastic. We slid down hot metal slides and landed on solid concrete. And we liked it! Well, those of us who didn't crack our heads open, that is.

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The slide I slid on, as a child in a Columbia Point playground, was made out of concrete. It was wide enough to accommodate 3-5 kids or more. We threw sand on it and slid down on pieces of cardboard to make it more slippery. I don't remember too many adults even being around. In fact, I broke my arm there hanging upside down and then falling from the monkey bars after a rainstorm. At least, it wasn't my head!

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There wasn't any kid in my neighborhood who didn't take a header off of the Jungle Gym at least once. For those unfamiliar with what a Jungle Gym was...

IMAGE(http://francies.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/jungle-gym2.jpg?w=480)

... and ours was rusty. It was also a fall onto asphalt. You usually smashed a knee or busted up a couple of fingers on the way down by smacking into the lower bars you hadn't been perched on.

What in HELL were our parents thinking? Our playgrounds were like some sort of insane obstacle course set up specifically to see if your kid would croak before puberty. To top it off, there were generally NO parents anywhere to be seen. If your buddy fell off the Jungle Gym and ended up with his leg behind his neck, you had to give him a piggyback home and then YOUR mom yelled at you for getting his blood on your shirt.

Ah, the good old days! If I hadn't had so many concussions, I'd recall them fondly!

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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Test scores are falling because we no longer have downright sadistic playground contraptions like these to weed out the dumb kids.

Heck, back in the day it was so difficult to watch TV, from turning all the knobs and fiddling with rabbit ears, that it was EASIER to read a book. No wonder people seemed smarter back then.

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Lynnetta was showing off, swinging from her knees from that highest bar when she slipped and fell.

Arm bones protruding through skin. Yeah, the good old days.

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I think the Archives should post old pictures of your childhood playgrounds and we can all guess where it is and you can see what you've lost from childhood suldog.

However, I do not believe that there was ever a playground in the middle of Roslindale Square so that guess is out.

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If the prize is good enough, I'll register under a different pseudonym.

Godlus
moc.topsgolb.godlusmij//:ptth

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Man oh man, I used to love those slides! Don't forget the customary rolls/flips over the top bar and of course, "revving up" before sliding down at, like, 10 mph!

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you also "Walked 5 mi. to school and 100 mi. back with no shoes".

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In the snow...

Uphill...

Both ways!

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My walk to school actually was uphill (and down) both ways--it involved going over a hill. I can't wait to have kids and pull that one out, because it is completely true.

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and we've done it in the snow!

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... and fall or roll off on to the squishiness, cry (or not), get hugs, and head right back out, you would be calling EMS.

That's because your kid would be turning blue and you would be panicking that it took so long for help to arrive because your kids head would be trapped between the bridge and the rail.

Or your kid would just break his or her neck when their head got caught and snapped back.

Sorry, but a safe playground means that nobody gets killed - not that nobody falls and gets frustrated or gets a boo boo or even a broken limb.

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The safety guidelines for play equipment have specifics like that if equipment has an uncaged platform higher than three feet or something, then it has to have written on it that it's for, like, kids over 24 months old. The stuff is designed so that most kids with typical motor skills and alertness skills won't get seriously maimed, but it's not designed so that no one falls ever.

A lot of it IS designed so that kids stumble and fall and have to keep trying to master it, cuz that's kind of the POINT.

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kid should be wearing helmets at playgrounds, they are inherently dangerous

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People do research this stuff and decided that it was a bad idea because helmets can get trapped, too.
http://www.helmets.org/playgrou.htm

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About knee pads? All joking aside, i think you need a life.

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FYI, that post was not from me, but instead from someone too coward to create their own account.

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I agree 100%

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one of the nicer, safer playgrounds ive seen in the city.

i remember my brother, as a kid, climbing up about 15 rungs to go down the metal slide at faneuil park in brighton. the base of the ladder was in the cement and the slide landed you in sand. little brother panicked and fell back onto cement. lucky to have just a broken wrist.

i take my boys to the frog pond occasionally in the hopes that we might get a gisele sighting! we've had a couple but dont tell mrs. bostnkid!

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Wow, and the kid survived that hella 6" fall?!

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it was at least a 12 foot drop. he was about 5 years old at the time. anymore questions?

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