Playground equipment – safety considerations during the winter season

What fun it could be for students to burst out of the school building and head straight for the playground equipment during the winter to participate in challenging play activity. However, allowing playground equipment use during winter may not be safe for students.

Do you have a plan in place to determine when the playground equipment should be closed for use during the winter? If you have some unseasonably warm winter days, can you permit playground use by your students during that time?

Risks:

• Studies by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) indicate approximately 75% of playground injuries result from falls.
• To reduce the severity of injury, impact attenuation using surfacing material is required per the CPSC’s Public Playground Safety Handbook.
• The handbook specifies allowable surfacing material types, along with required depth of surfacing material to be maintained to reduce the impact severity of falls.
• The ASTM F1292 standard outlines the laboratory processes involved in measuring the noted surfacing material. However, there is one caveat: The effect of all noted surfacing material protection becomes completely voided when the ground freezes.
• A student falling from a climbing unit or other elevated playground surface and striking the frozen surfacing material can have the same outcome as falling on a slab of concrete. The result could be a serious injury or death.

Best Practices:

• Remember, playground equipment is only permitted for use when the surfacing material meets CPSC requirements and the surfacing material is warm enough to provide impact protection. When frozen, the surfacing material’s composition changes and voids its effectiveness.
• Your school should develop a policy on the use of playground equipment during the wintry season. Options could include closing the playground equipment for a predetermined amount of days/months or opening the playground equipment on a case-by-case basis — but only after analyzing the surfacing material before each school day. If the surfacing material is thoroughly or partially frozen, then the playground equipment should not be opened for use.
• Other considerations include:
  • Although the ambient temperature may rise above freezing, you still need verify the depth of the surfacing material is completely thawed – otherwise the playground equipment should be closed for use.
  • Even if you get a surprise warmup after a deep freeze, and the surfacing material is no longer frozen, that still does not mean the playground equipment is safe for use. Freezing may have caused the surfacing material to shrink to a depth below the minimum required dimensions.
  • Have other hazards resulted during the winter? Perhaps high winds blew debris onto the surfacing material, water ponded onto the surfacing material or metal anchoring bars have protruded above a surface due to the freeze/thaw cycles, creating an impalement hazard.

Be sure to consider playground equipment use at your school during the winter. Plan ahead on your protocol for potentially opening the playground equipment, but only after verifying surfacing material meets CPSC parameters. If in doubt, plan to keep the playground equipment closed for use until you can ensure the surfacing material provides the correct impact attenuation in the event of a student fall.