We were pleased to get a presidential tour of the new White House swing set on "60 Minutes" Sunday night. (Click on the image to see the video clip.) As President Obama said, it's "pretty spectacular." But not for the reasons readers may think. What we noticed is that underneath the swings, slide, and other sections is a soft protective surface intended to absorb shock and prevent serious injury in the event of a fall. So, like the Obama daughters, we give it a "thumbs up."
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission , each year about 200,000 children are treated on U.S. hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to playground equipment and about 15 children die as a result. An estimated 51,000 of those injuries involve home playground equipment. Since almost 60 percent of all injuries are caused by falls to the ground, protective surfacing under and around all playground equipment can reduce the risk of serious head injury.
Grass offers little cushioning in the event of a fall. To make swing sets safer, homeowners should install loose-fill material such as rubber or wood chips, wood mulch, loose sand, or pea gravel. Whatever protective surfacing is used, it should be no less than nine inches thick; but since it has a tendency to compress over time, we recommend that newly installed surfacing be about 12 inches thick for an extra margin of protection. The surfacing should extend at least six feet in all directions from the outer edge of the play set. For swings, it should extend twice the height of the suspension bar both in front of and in back of the swings.
Take a ride through almost any suburban neighborhood and you'll notice swing sets that have not been safely installed. We hope the example set by the Obama family catches the attention of other parents, thus reducing the risk of serious injury from play-set falls. We also hope that Malia and Sasha have many happy and safe times with their swing set.
For more information on safe playgrounds read our earlier post, Play it safe on the playground, or
the CPSC Outdoor Home Playground Safety Handbook and the CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook.
Who paid for these safety measures? If this was constructed at taxpayer's expense, then perhaps President [Obama] could see fit to retrofit playgrounds across the nation in a like manner. That would be "Change we could believe in"! Growing up in Middle America in the 1950, I remember the way our school playgrounds where "paved", with crushed stone, and we all survived! I guess this is progress in the right direction.
It is nice to know that the US taxpayers paid for the best family playground for the daughters of the President of the US!
A school playground in my town (Rutherford, NJ) recently burned at temperatures hot enough to melt aluminum when a child set fire to the cushioning rubber surface with an ordinary lighter. They estimate that the blaze took only 20 minutes to consume the whole plastic playground. How safe are these safety surfaces, anyway?
I am happy that our president's children get the best. Their father has the most immportant job in the world. So much time away from home, trying to ensure a safer America. We need to work withy our local level policy makers to ensure that we too have the safest playset. Nothing but the best for those American girls.
How did I ever survive to 73, my swing in my childhood home backyard was a used tire hanging from a tree branch. The branch could have broken, the tire was probably toxic, there wasn't even grass to cushion a fall (it had worn away from lots of use. Scrapes and bruises are part of growing up and getting smarts.
Do your homework Consumer Reports. Look at this holistically not just from the viewpoint of physical safety. If the material they are using is rubber it can get very hot and it offgasses toxins. An initial California study showed that up to 49 toxins could be released from tire crumbs. It can also leach into the soil and destroy the organic matter under this 'safe' material. We have to stop looking at one data point, it's how we got into the trouble we are in currently.
I actually put Rubber Mulch, Curbs and Mats in my playground. After I took my kids to a park that had it and saw the difference in there faces as they played! I wanted to have the mulch and mats... from the same place as the President. I tell my kids this and they feel so good!
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