Playground Guide - 2020 - 22

of priority level one injuries exists,
remediation must be done immediately, according to the Certiﬁed Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) training course administered by NRPA.
Otherwise, the piece of equipment
must be taken out of service.
Cause of serious injury on a piece of
play equipment can only result from
the way in which the playground or
its components are used, maintained,
constructed or designed. Patent (i.e.,
obvious) defects are most often noted
and remediated routinely. An appropriate method of detecting a latent
(i.e., hidden) defect would address
each of the following known causes,
in turn, from most to least obvious:
Playground inspections must be
performed by staﬀ members who are
properly trained.

How soon a playground defect
requires attention depends on the
priority level of potential injuries.
The ASTMI/CPSC Playground Audit
Guide (tinyurl.com/y439r39p) states
that injury priority level is determined
without regard to the potential cause
of the injury or the standards met by
a piece of playground equipment. A
hazard that exists may or may not be
a priority level one (likelihood of permanent disability, loss of body part,
death) depending upon location. A
piece of playground equipment that
complies with applicable standards
can be the location of recurring serious injuries. Where the likelihood

Parks & Recreation

Improper Use and
Poor Supervision
Are playground patrons misusing the
equipment?
Manufacturers of playground equipment are required to anticipate how
their equipment can be misused and
provide safety measures in those situations. If serious injuries result from
improper use of a piece of equipment,
then the equipment needs to be modiﬁed by the manufacturer. Warnings
and supervision are less reliable preventive measures. As modiﬁcations
require time to design, fabricate and
install, the equipment should be taken out of service if the likelihood of
priority level one injuries exists.

Site Planning Issues
Are other physical aspects of the

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playground contributing to injuries?
Having already checked sight lines,
surfacing and conformance of the
playground apparatus to applicable
standards, we must check to ensure
pieces of equipment are not in conﬂict with one another in terms of adjacency and zone of use separation.
If conﬂicts exist, equipment may
have to be relocated. Climatic conditions are another area to investigate.

Poor Maintenance
Have we performed timely and effective maintenance on the piece of
equipment?
Inspections must be performed
by staﬀ members who are properly
trained to recognize safety issues and
equipment defects. If the inspection
does not reveal a defect, additional
eﬀort is required. While the investigation continues, risk of serious injury would determine whether or not
the equipment was left in service.
Does the piece of equipment comply with applicable regulations and
standards?
The purpose of playground audits
is to determine conformance with
applicable standards. Conformance
will not eliminate all playground injuries. If the piece of equipment is
compliant with applicable regulations and standards, additional effort is required to ﬁnd a defect. Risk
of serious injury would determine
whether or not the equipment was
left in service during that time.
Are we maintaining adequate man-

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Playground Guide - 2020

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