There’s no doubt that parents going down slides with their children is as common as can be — but how safe is it, really?
After Huntington, New York-based mother of three Heather Clare’s 1-year-old daughtersuffered multiple fractures to her legwhen they rode down a slide together in 2015 (documentedin a photothat recently went viral), both the emergency-room and orthopedic doctors told Clare that slide-related injuries are surprisingly common.
“They both advised us that there really is no safe way to go down the slide with your child in your lap,” Clare — whose daughter Meadow has since made a full recovery — told PEOPLE. “Even if parents tuck in their child’s feet, they can get stuck under their parents then. They really advise one person at a time down a slide.”
Heather Clare
“When we got down to the bottom of the slide, she was crying bad,” Clare recalled to PEOPLE of 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.”
Clare rushed her daughter to the emergency room, where doctors discoveredMeadow had fractured thetibia and fibula in her right leg. The little girl would then spend the next four weeks wearing a pink cast.
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Clare has shown the shocking picture to anyone she can in thehopes she can prevent another childfrom experiencing the excruciating pain her daughter did.
“I spoke with other moms, and they had no idea, so it really pushed me to post the photo publicly on Facebook, and I wanted to reach more people,” Clare told PEOPLE. “I never expected it would spread so quickly.”
source: people.com
