Playground Slide Explodes, Injures 9-Year-Old Boy

WEST ALLIS, WI — A 9-year-old child suffered injuries including second-degree burns after the plastic playground slide he slid down exploded, and nobody knows why it happened.

According to a WTMJ report, 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 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 city of West Allis blocked off the slide until it was removed and replaced with a new slide.

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 Minnesota-based Landscape Structures, which installed the slide, were scheduled to travel to the West Allis park on Tuesday, June 27, to find out.

Submitted Photo