Mom's shocking photo of daughter's injury warns of playground danger
Photo: Heather Clare on Facebook
(WJBK) - It seems harmless. Parents and loved ones do it every day while they're playing at the park with kids -- sitting the child in their lap and going down a slide. Heather Clare thought it was innocent enough, too.
"I had no idea. I thought everyone took their kids down the slide," she says.
But there's a hidden danger in this playground routine -- one that Clare unfortunately learned the hard way.
When her daughter Meadow was 1, Clare sat her on her lap and took her down a playground slide. But Meadow's foot got caught between Clare and the side, breaking her leg.
Someone just happened to take a picture the exact moment Meadow's leg was breaking, and Clare says she shares the photo every year to warn other parents not to do this with their kids.
Note: some may find the photo disturbing
"When we got down to the bottom of the slide, she was crying bad," Clare told People Magazine about the injury, which occurred just three days after Meadow took her first steps. "It was terrible, especially feeling like I put her in that position. It was completely avoidable."
She says when she got to the ER, the doctor lectured her on how common this injury is. She says she had no idea, and is sure many other parents are unaware of the hidden danger as well.
"Don't ever go down a slide with a baby on your lap. There is no SAFE way to go down a slide with your little," she wrote in her latest post about the photo.
She added that it's one of the top reasons young children have to be taken to the emergency room in the warmer months.
Clare says in the future she'd love to see warning signs at playgrounds.