Two children injured after hydrochloric acid poured on playground slide
Two children in western Massachusetts were injured after playing on playground equipment that was doused with hydrochloric acid.
Police, firefighters, and a hazmat team were dispatched to the playground in Bliss Park in the town of Longmeadow on Sunday morning when a mother saw her children were left with ‘burn-like’ injuries after playing on a slide.
The children’s mother, Ashley Thielen, told Western Mass News that her two children were left with swollen and blistered limbs from a pool of liquid at the base of the slide.
‘I let the kids go play,’ Thielen said. ‘I didn’t notice that there was liquid to collect at the bottom of the slide. I just assumed it was rainwater. I didn’t really think much of it, and then, my baby, who is one, just started crying.’
Thielen said she arrived at the park around 8.40am on Sunday, and thought they were the first ones to arrive that day.
‘The bottom of the slide, where it was, there was a good amount of it collected there,’ Thielen said. ‘I was surprised he didn’t start splashing in it.’
Investigators at the park quickly realized that the pump room in the park’s pool building had been broken into the night before.
‘Two fences had been climbed and a cover to a ventilation shaft was torn off,’ the Longmeadow Fire Department said in a news release. ‘The perpetrators entered the room through the ventilation shaft.’
The thief or thieves then stole the pool’s supply of muriatic acid – another name for hydrochloric acid.
‘The pool chemicals had been stored properly in a secured area,’ the Fire Department said. ‘A great deal of effort was employed to enter this space. We suspect that the perpetrators may have suffered acid burns to their hands or arms and their clothing may have indications of being degraded from contact with the acid.’
Longmeadow Police have asked the public to come forward if they know anyone with new burns on their hands, arms, or clothing.
A hazmat team determined that the pool building burglars poured the chemicals down three different slides across the playground.
Police in Longmeadow said they were ‘committed to bringing those responsible to justice.’ The incident is still under investigation, with help from the Massachusetts State Police
Authorities have closed the entire playground out of an abundance of caution, and contracted a special cleaner to conduct a deep clean on all play surfaces.
All mulch and sand in the playground is slated to be replaced as well.
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