Minnesota-Based Company Involved In Slide Explosion

A Minnesota-based company is involved in an incident in which a nine-year-old child suffered injuries including second-degree burns after the plastic playground slide he slid down exploded. Landscape Structure, a company based out of Delano, Minnesota, reportedly installed the slide.

According to a WTMJ report, nine-year-old Giuseppe Storniolo was with his sister and parents at Reservoir Park in West Allis last week when the explosion rocked the otherwise relaxing playground. Storniolo's mother was nearby and told WTMJ that she heard "a big explosion as though something fell."

She ran to see what happened, only to find that the circular slide her son had been playing on exploded, with her son injured nearby. Her son suffered burns to his right leg, but was otherwise recovering in the hospital.

Instead of a green plastic spiral slide, it appeared to her as a crumpled mass of green plastic, inexplicably pushed out from its center as though the inside of the slide blew up.

Police investigated the case, and the Wisconsin city of West Allis blocked off the slide until it was removed and replaced with a new slide. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Minnesota Patch, click here to find your local Minnesota Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

According to a WMTW report, a replacement slide was en route from Minneapolis later that week for replacement and was installed on Saturday.

Nobody really knows what happened to the slide. Police do not suspect any nefarious actions from suspects, though. Was there a hole at the bottom of the slide that initiated a gas-plastic interaction? It's a mystery.

Workers from Landscape Structures were scheduled to travel to the West Allis park on Tuesday, June 27, to find out.

Scott Anderson (Patch Staff) contributed to this report.

Submitted photo