Playground Tragedy: 7-Year-Old Girl Dies After Recess, Parents Want Answers [Video]

A playground tragedy happened last week after a 7-year-old girl was at recess. Her parents want answers regarding how this could have happened.

The student who attended Fisher’s Landing Elementary School isn’t being identified out of respect for her family. KATU was told by a spokeswoman of Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver, Washington, that the district is conducting an investigation into the playground incident that led to her death. The girl was taken off life support by doctors on Friday.

According to the spokeswoman, no one at the school witnessed what happened to the student during recess, and she didn’t tell anyone about it.

On Wednesday, the girl told her parents that she fell off a swing during recess. Despite that happening earlier in the day, the child managed to walk a few blocks home after school; she told her father that she was feeling dizzy. Following that, her brother discovered her sick in her room when he went to check on her. Alarmed by the girl’s condition, they called an ambulance.

The girl was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury after being rushed to a Vancouver. She was later transferred to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, where she later died.

The family released a statement, expressing that they “want to thank the school and community for their thoughts and prayers as they honor our little girl’s memory and the gifts her tragedy will bring. At this time we are grateful for respect and privacy.”

Memorial arrangements will be announced soon. The girl would have been 8-years-old at the end of October.

Letters were sent home by the school district to parents, informing them of the girl falling off the swing at recess.

News 4 reports that a school district in Richland, Washington, is removing swingsets from their playgrounds after the girl’s tragic death last week. They believe swings are too dangerous for children. Not only that, but they’re under pressure from insurance companies over liability for injuries.

Steve Aagard of the Richland School District shares that swings are deemed the most “unsafe of all playground equipment.”

The report includes a statistic that about 200,000 children each year are sent to the emergency room due to injuries sustained on the playground. Those injuries predominately come from children walking in front or behind swings that another child is on.

There haven’t been any speculations or theories as to how the 7-year-old girl died after she fell off the swing.

[Image via Commons Wikimedia]