Near-tragedy on play gear

Press, 26 November 1981, Page 25

Near-tragedy on play gear

PA Hamilton A Hamilton toddler accidentally hanged himself and almost died on play equipment in his back yard recently. Craig Hennebry, aged three, somehow wound a swing chain around his neck, slipped, and was throttling with his feet off the ground when spotted by his mother from an upstairs window.

He was semi-conscious when rescued. Since the accident, the maker of the play equipment, Hills Industries, Ltd. of Auckland, undertook to look again at safety features. The equipment combines a swing, a slide, and a dualswing. “It is a beautiful thing

and it has been marvellous for the children," Mrs Jane Hennebry said. “I would never have imagined this could happen." She believed that having the swing chains in easy reach of the slide and ladder was a design fault. When rescued, Craig still had one weak hand grip on the slide ladder and one leg over a ladder rung. He would certainty have died if not for his mother’s glance out a bedroom window.

It took both parents to lift him and free the chain tangled around his neck. Mrs Hennebry immediately wrote to Hills Industries and suggested that steel rods should replace the swing chains.

Since the incident friends with similar equipment had slipped plastic hose over the chain as another means of eliminating the danger. A Hills Industries spokesman said that Mrs Hennebry’s letter had caused real concern. The company aimed at fail-safe design in its play equipment. Steel rods had been used

on the swing up to three years ago. In combination with a steel seat there was a risk of a child's being hit and hurt. Chains and a plastic seat were judged safer and the modification had been well received. This was the first complaint “We realty go to a lot of trouble to make our product as safe as possible,” he said.