Arizona girl dies after swing set breaks suddenly

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities in a Phoenix suburb say a 7-year-old girl is dead and a 14-year-old girl is hospitalized after a backyard swing set broke apart.

Gilbert polices Sgt. Jesse Sanger says firefighters responded to a home around 9:30 a.m. Sunday and found both girls with head injuries.

Sanger says the 14-year-old was on the wooden swing and the younger girl was standing nearby when it snapped at the base. He says both were knocked into a swimming pool.

The 7-year-old died while being airlifted to a hospital. Sanger did not know the 14-year-old's condition but said she also suffered damage to her shoulder.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b014c0b4b2ca43aba1a2d9791d9ca00e/arizona-girl-dies-after-swing-set-breaks-suddenly

[GGJohn]

1. How horrible!!!

Condolences to the family in this most difficult time.

[Malone]

2. .

That's unbelievably horrible. When my Mom was 3 she was involved in a similar accident standing by a swing set that broke and hit her in the head.

[EL34x4]

5. I went to college with a young woman, paralyzed from the waist down

due to a swing set accident when she was 16.

[Xithras]

12. Had a coworker with a paralyzed son from the same thing.

Kid was six years old. Went a bit higher than he could control, came off the swing backwards and landed on his head. Snapped his neck.

Life is random sometimes.

[sakabatou]

3. :(

[RKP5637]

4. OMG, how horrible...

[jwirr]

6. They come with instructions to put them together but often they do not have maintenance

instructions. The bolts etc. need tightening every year. That may not have been the problem here but we find our set needs this attention.

[marshall]

14. Or instructions about how much weight to put in the swing

This swing apparantly had a wooden seat which broke in two. It likely also came with instructions (or warnings) about how high one should swing. But how many folks read those in the beginning, much less keep them for any extended period of time?

Neither child lived at the home where the accident happened. Everryone should take care to watch what goes on in one's backyard. While we might teach our own children how to safely use equipment such as this, we are ultimately responsible for anyone who might be injured on the premises.

[jwirr]

16. Yes, we expect so much in our homes to just work. Plug it in and forget it. I wondered when I read

it if the 14 year old might have been too old for the swing.

[rury]

7. Life is so fragile.

[JI7]

8. just too sad

[colorado_ufo]

9. Deepest condolences to the family.

[joshcryer]

10. Random act of living.

Unfortunately. Statistically a lot of people die from purely random, purely unfair incidents. Many people die taking a mere shower, for example. It's really sad when it happens.

[Judi Lynn]

11. A shock from a place you'd expect to be the safest place in the world for a child. n/t

[Radael]

13. Sure them

Tragic.

[Blue_Tires]

15. What the hell caused it to "snap at the base??"

[marshall]

17. It was apparently a big tree like structure

The photo here makes it more clear:

http://www.10news.com/news/u-s-world/teen-seriously-hurt-7-year-old-girl-killed-in-pool-swing-accident-in-arizona-050315

At first I pictured a big teenager wildly swinging on a small swing set. That is not the case here--this was a top heavy, t-shaped swing that was used to jump into the pool. The base had reportedly become rotted and snapped with the teenager was using it, and the heavy logs fell onto the younger child and caused catastrophic injuries.