WEST ALLIS, WI (WTMJ/CNN) – A Wisconsin child is recovering from second-degree burns after he was hurt at a playground when one of the slides “exploded,” his mother says.
Giuseppe Storniolo, 9, was at a park in West Allis, WI, Wednesday evening with his parents and younger siblings when something went terribly wrong on the playground.
“I just heard like a big explosion, so I thought maybe something fell,” said Diana Storniolo, Giuseppe’s mother.
Somehow a hole formed near the bottom of the slide when the boy was going down. Giuseppe suffered second-degree burns, his mother says.
“I would like them to find out what went wrong,” Storniolo said.
Mayor Dan Devine says the city secured the area, and the slide was taken down Thursday morning.
“It was like the slide had just almost been inflated. It just opened up, bubbled,” Devine said. “I don't know. It might be some kind of chemical reaction. It might be some kind of gas-plastic reaction.”
Devine says slides like the one in question are used all over the world, including two others in West Allis. City inspectors checked them out Thursday and deemed them safe.
“We have been in touch… with the manufacturer, with the designer, the installer. None of them had ever seen anything like this before,” Devine said.
Police don’t believe there was anything suspicious about what happened, so there is no criminal investigation.
While some West Allis parents are concerned, families are still using the playground.
“It's just weird that that would happen, you know, to a slide,” mother Andrea Schoenbeck said.
Until investigators determine what caused the problem with the slide, Storniolo says she’s left waiting for answers.
“It was a mystery what happened there,” she said.
Copyright 2017 WTMJ, Storniolo Family via CNN. All rights reserved.
