Photo Credit: Courtesy City of Rifle, CO
This column, “LBWA” (Leadership By Wandering Around), is based on the premise that, in order to find out what’s going on in the field, a parks and rec leader has to leave his or her desk and “wander around” the area of operations, talk to people, ask questions, and kick around ideas with the individuals in the thick of delivering services to the public. So the author will bring up issues that may be common to many PRB readers and ask the leaders who are the readers to weigh in and share their knowledge and experiences.
Every year, more than 20,000 adults and children are injured—and some are killed—in accidents involving bleachers and other types of seating for which parks and recreation departments are responsible.
Unfortunately, there are too many examples of the consequences of a lack in maintenance: a 2-year-old slipped through the opening in out-of-code bleachers in Kentucky and died from the injuries; a 6-year-old died after falling from unsafe bleachers in Minnesota, leading to replacement of hundreds of sets of bleachers across the state; in 2012, five children died in falls from bleachers.