A child being injured by defective playground equipment is every parent’s worst nightmare. You go to a park to let your excited child run off some energy and experience the pure joy that only a child in a playground can enjoy, and you end in the back of an ambulance as your child lays unconscious, strapped on a gurney.
While rare, that scenario tragically does play out in town and cities across the nation. A manufacturer has recently filed for bankruptcy protection, after a playground accident five years ago left a fourth-grader from an Oklahoma school dead from a severe concussion, caused by the playground equipment.
The nine-year-old fell off a teeter-totter-like equipment, known as an “x-wave,” crashed into her head as she got up, apparently causing a cardiac arrest in connection with the severe concussion.
While you expect, on occasion, your child will have bumps and bruises from scrapes with their playground equipment, you don’t expect fatal head trauma from these incidents.
The bankruptcy of the manufacturer serves as a reminder if your children are injured in this type of an accident; you need to proceed as quickly as possible to bringing your claim. In addition to statutes of limitation, which can bar claims within a few years, there is always the potential that a manufacturer may have produced numerous defective items.
If these defects cause numerous injuries or deaths, the company may be at financial risk from all of the lawsuits. If you wait too long, there may be insufficient funds remaining to provide compensation for your damages.
Tulsaworld.com, “Company which made playground equipment alleged in Oklahoma child’s death seeks bankruptcy protection,” SHEILA STOGSDILL, February 20, 2015