With the warm weather now upon us, plenty of parents are spending more time outside with their kids, including at playgrounds. Moms and dads love to push their kids on the swings and help them on the monkey bars, but one thing parents should never do is go down the slide with their children on their laps, and one mother who learned that lesson the hard way is sharing her experience to warn others.
In 2015, Heather Clare was enjoying a beautiful day with her one-year-old twins, Meadow and Matthew, at a Huntington, New York playground. She went down the slide with Meadow as her husband photographed the moment, but at the bottom of the slide, Meadow was screaming in pain, and after checking out the photo, the parents could see why.
**The below photo might be upsetting to some readers**
The little girl's foot got caught between her mom and the slide, and the photo was taken just at the moment Meadow's leg broke. While she is smiling in the picture, a split second later she was in excruciating pain.
Heather recently re-posted the pic on Facebook, explaining in the caption that she does it every year to warn other parents "in hopes that the pain Meadow felt and the guilt [Heather] still feel[s] will save other babies and parents from the same." Heather said that the injury is so common it is one of the top three reasons young kids go to the ER in spring and summer.
Even though Heather had her daughters limbs tucked in at the top of the slide, Meadow still wound up fracturing the tibia and fibula in her leg and was in a cast for four weeks. Thankfully, the now four-year-old girl made a full recovery.
Photo Credit: Getty