{"id":3608,"date":"2008-07-21T08:13:26","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T13:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3608"},"modified":"2008-07-21T08:13:26","modified_gmt":"2008-07-21T13:13:26","slug":"mats_hot_lack_of_shoes_hurts_most_vulnerable_park_users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/07\/mats_hot_lack_of_shoes_hurts_most_vulnerable_park_users.html","title":{"rendered":"Mats Hot; Lack Of Shoes Hurts Most Vulnerable Park Users"},"content":{"rendered":"

And once that happens, we’ll finally be able to realize white asphalt<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Black rubber mats designed to break a child’s fall turn blistering hot in the summer, soaring to higher than 165 degrees, a Daily News investigation found. <\/p>\n

Doctors at two city hospital burn units reported seeing 16 to 18 young children with playground burns a year, mostly from the mats under junglegyms and sliding boards. <\/p>\n

“I have nightmares,” said Anne Casson, whose toddler son, Will, ditched his shoes at Carl Schurz Park on the upper East Side one day last May. <\/p>\n

“He stepped onto the black mats and was screaming hysterically,” Casson said. “When I picked him up, the skin was just hanging off his feet.” <\/p>\n

The baby spent four days in New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, where doctors administered morphine for intense pain. <\/p>\n

The News, accompanied by NYC Park Advocates, took the temperature of mats under junglegyms at playgrounds in all five boroughs last Friday. <\/p>\n

“It is unconscionable that the city continues to install products in playgrounds that hurt the most vulnerable park users — small children,” said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates, who took a 166.9-degree reading on the mats at Carl Schurz. “How many more have to get hurt until someone is held accountable?” <\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said signs were posted in playgrounds warning against going barefoot. <\/p>\n

“We’re not going to remove [the mats],” Benepe told The News. “Our playgrounds are the safest in the world.” <\/p>\n

Reyhan Mehran, a marine scientist from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said her son Kian Mehran-Lodge was 14 months old in July 2004 when he was burned at Van Voorhees Park. <\/p>\n

“We cannot understand why the city wouldn’t immediately remove material that is known to severely burn children,” she said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And once that happens, we’ll finally be able to realize white asphalt: Black rubber mats designed to break a child’s fall turn blistering hot in the summer, soaring to higher than 165 degrees, a Daily News investigation found. Doctors at two city hospital burn units reported seeing 16 to 18 young children with playground burns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grandstanding","category-well_what_did_you_expect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3609,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions\/3609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}