It's a feeling we remember all too well from our days as kids at the playground — the burn of a sun-baked metal slide on the back of our legs.
Now, a Calgary park has been forced to close their newly-opened, south-facing slides, after at least one complaint of a child's backside being burned by the hot metal.
According to the Calgary Sun, the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) has closed a number of slides at St. Patrick's Island after someone called to complain that a child sustained blistering burns late last month.
"We haven't had direct contact with the parents, the family or the child, obviously, but in this case we we took immediate action," Susan Veres of CMLC told Metro Calgary. "We will make sure that the health and welfare of the child and our guests are paramount in all of what we do here."
City officials told the Calgary Herald that they are looking at ways to block the sun — possibly a different material for the slides or adding a canopy or vegetation to cast a shadow on the metal. Until they find a solution, the slides will remain closed.
Dana Wheatley of Calgary's Playground Review told Metro that the playground's developers probably should have thought of the position of the slides in advance.
"South facing metal slides getting hot are a known problem and I'm surprised that this was overlooked when it is such a major part of the playground design."
ALSO ON HUFFPOST:
