Page 6 - LARM Life Spring 2020

Is your playground

equipment safe?

Nearly every city or village in Nebraska has at least LARM Loss Control staff have taken
one park playground that usually contains a mixture steps to learn more about playground
of new and older playground equipment. LARM staff safety. In March 2019, Dave Bos, LARM
reminds city officials that they need to inspect this Loss Control Manager, Fred Wiebelhaus,
equipment regularly as outdated and even new LARM Field Adjuster Supervisor/Loss
playground equipment may have the potential to Control Assistant, and Randy Peters,
cause injuries. LARM Field Auto Adjuster/Loss Control
According to the Consumer Product Safety
A A
Assistassistant each received training and
Commission, more than 200,000 children ages 14 earned the Certi ed Playground Safety
and younger are taken to emergency rooms each Inspector (CPSI) designation through
year with injuries from playground equipment. Not the National Recreation and Park
only broken bones and abrasions but concussions Association.
and severe head injuries have been the result of The CPSI certi cation program provides
mishaps on a piece of playground equipment. comprehensive training on playground
safety issues including hazard
identi cation, equipment speci cations,
surfacing requirements, and risk
management methods.
“
“It’s important for our Loss Control staff
to be able to review LARM members’
playground equipment and advise
members as to how they could make
them safer. It may be as simple as
tightening up a bolt that has become
loose but there are probably some
p
pieieces of equipment out there that
need to be repaired or possibly
replaced,” said Bos. He, Wiebelhaus, and
From top left to bottom
right: Dave Bos, LARM Loss Peters will be conducting playground
Control Manager; Fred audits in 2020 for those members who
Wiebelhaus, LARM Field request they do so.
Adjuster “When we do the audits we will make
Suupervisor/Loss Control recommendations and present them to
S
Assistant; and Randy the member. Our goal is to help our
Peters, LARM Field Auto members keep their playgrounds as safe
Adjuster/Loss Control as possible,” Bos said.
Bos said there are three major areas of
Assistant B
concern when inspecting a playground
for safety issues.
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