Serious Accident Involving Six Year Old Leads to Re-Thinking Safety Measures at Teegarden Park

You can drive right past the entrance to Teegarden Park on Cassat Road and easily miss it. Laid out under the PECO power lines between Cassat and Contention Road the park has a realtively low profile. You can't really see the football practice fields clearly from either road.

But a recent accident at a Pop Warner football league practice has turned a bright spotlight on conditions in one of the two parking lots in the park. The one that's invisible from the road. It sits hundreds of yards back from Cassat, down a hill and during night practices the parking lot can be very dark. A six year old Valley Forge Elementary student was walking in the lot when he was hit and partially run over by a driver who could not see him in the twilight under the sightlines of a big S.U.V..

The child had to be airlifted to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where he underwent emergency reconstructive surgery on his face and head. He is now recovering and went back to school last week.

Now public concern over the safety of the parking lot in has sparked conversation within the Township.

“Residents came to the Park Board meeting requesting changes to be made to the parking lot,”  Township Manager and Traffic Committee member Mimi Gleason told the Tredyffrin Board of Supervisors Monday night.

In response, working with Tredyffrin’s Police Department and Supervisor John DiBuonaventuro, Gleason and the Traffic Committee would reportedly like to see a child drop off area at Teegarden Park.

spoke briefly at Monday night’s supervisors meeting, voicing the community’s worries that were laid out during a Park & Rec Board meeting last week. “I think what the residents are concerned about coming up with a solution that is going to make the situation safer, regardless of what that is. They’re just looking for this to not happen again.”

The next meeting of the Traffic Committee will be held on Wednesday, December 21, at 7:30am, where plans to move forward with the new safety measures will be further discussed. Before that meeting the Park & Recreation Board will be working with parents, the teams who use the Teegarden fields and the Public Works Department to put temporary safety measures in place for the remainder of the football season.