A hot summer afternoon spent at the waterpark Fun Mountain was anything but fun for one family in Manitoba. Jennifer Hoare’s 4-year-old daughter went down one of the kids’ slides and emerged at the bottom complaining about a pain in her foot.
“She comes out and immediately starts saying ‘Owee Mommy my foot. Owee owee owe’,” Hoare told CTV Winnipeg. “There was this big blue thing lodged between her toe and her toenail.”
Hoare says the “blue thing” in her daughter’s big toe was a chunk of fibreglass covered in paint. She ended up taking her to the children’s hospital.
“She was screaming at the top of her lungs telling me ‘Mommy it hurts. Mommy make it stop,’” Hoare said, choking back tears. “As a parent, it’s the most horrific thing I’ve gone through.”
Fun Mountain’s owner, Tanya Hall, sympathizes with Hoare’s ordeal but said the park couldn’t comment specifically about the incident involving her child. She says that minor injuries such as cuts, scrapes and bruises happen every day.
“I’m a mother too,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether the injury is small or big, you’re always worried about your children.”
Hall says there are 1,500 visitors to Fun Mountain every day during the summer. She says safety is a top priority for the park, which includes lifeguards and a first aid station.
“Every morning, before we open the park, our lifeguards and hill monitors walk these slides up and down,” she said. “We’re checking fibreglass. We’re checking paint.”
Manitoba Public Health inspects water quality at waterslide parks and will investigate a particular slide if they receive a complaint. Hoare believes this doesn’t go far enough and that the province should conduct more waterpark inspections throughout the summer.
“Considering that they’re only open for three to four months a year, I think they should be inspected before they’re open, once during they’re open and once before they close for the season,” she said.
Hoare says her daughter is still healing after their visit to Fun Mountain but she’s no longer a fan of the water. She’s urging other parents to take extra precautions during trips to waterparks, such as wearing water shoes.
With a report from CTV Winnipeg’s Beth Macdonell
