Wyandanch schoolkids injured when inflatable slide tips over during field day
An inflatable slide with 14 children tipped over in Wyandanch on Tuesday morning, and several injured kids were sent to the hospital, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.
The children were at Wyandanch Park during Lafrancis Hardiman Elementary School's field day, according to a statement on the Wyandanch school district's website.
The incident happened when "one of the inflatable slides deflated while students were on the slide," the district's superintendent Gina Talbert said in the statement.
Surveillance video — provided by Rich Schaffer, supervisor of Babylon Town, which runs the park — shows the multicolored slide tipping over, sending children scurrying and adults running toward the slide.
Officers from the police department responded to a call at about 9:45 a.m. about the slide, which had 14 children on it when the incident happened, the department’s press office said in an email.
“One child was transported to a hospital with a broken leg. Four other children were transported to hospitals for minor injuries,” the email said.
Schaffer said one child was brought to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center with a potential head injury.
He said the field day was attended by students in the third to sixth grades. The police said the children on the slide were 6 and 7 years old.
Police on the scene of an inflatable slide accident at Wyandanch Park, where children from Lafrancis Hardiman Elementary School were injured Tuesday during a field day event. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Both the police department and the school district are investigating the incident.
The district is working with the company that provided the inflatables to determine "the cause of this situation" and would provide more information as available, according to Talbert's statement.
"We recognize this is a very scary event witnessed by our young scholars, staff, and families and we are deeply concerned about how this could have happened," she said.
When asked by email, Marissa Gallo of Syntax, the Wyandanch district's outside public relations agency, did not answer a question seeking the name of the company that provided the slide.
Schaffer said the school had gotten a permit from the town to use the park for the field day.
A 2015 report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated there to be 113,272 emergency room treated-injuries “associated with inflatable amusements” between 2003 and 2013. There were 12 deaths during those years.
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
