\u201cAs he turned around and walked a different direction this big metal cylinder-like head with a large bolt through the middle flew onto the ground,\u201d she told the Herald.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt landed about a foot and a half away from my son. It was actually headed right towards him then it changed directions within seconds as it landed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cap from a “space shuttle” playground climbing structure nearly landed on a 10-month-old boy.<\/p>\n
Forbes said the incident could have had a \u201cpotential life-threatening result\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was only a small distance away, about a metre and a half. It happened so quickly that I wasn\u2019t able to reach him in time as it landed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am extremely grateful it missed him, but if it hit him he would be hospitalised with a potential life-threatening result. It was nearly as big as my son with a good amount of weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Auckland Council general manager parks and community facilities Taryn Crewe told the Herald \u201cthe safety of playground users is of the utmost importance to us\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are relieved to hear that the child was not injured and acknowledge it would have been a frightening experience for the child and their parents,\u201d Crew said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur contractor attended the site on July 8 and has assessed the site and space shuttle as safe (with the metal cone removed).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe playground, including the space shuttle, remains open and safe to use.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be following up with the playground supplier to understand the reason for failure and will identify similar types of equipment and carry out additional checks to ensure they are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forbes said she still feels \u201cguilt\u201d and \u201cfear\u201d over what could have happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a horrible feeling as a mum with such a close call. I hope this never happens again on a playground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs he turned around and walked a different direction this big metal cylinder-like head with a large bolt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[163866,74,1975,51,15117,14646,5205,15972,181383,14046,11927,11692,119536,111,139,69,8143,9615,34522,55142,10665,312,213,148506,257183,3807],"class_list":["post-518024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-10monthold","tag-after","tag-at","tag-auckland","tag-boy","tag-checking","tag-council","tag-equipment","tag-faulty","tag-hurt","tag-landed","tag-nearly","tag-nearmiss","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-park","tag-piece","tag-playground","tag-relieved","tag-reserve","tag-says","tag-sports","tag-taupaki","tag-tots","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}