Sting in the tail for slide user
A Wellington woman’s bottom was ‘‘shredded’’ when she slid over broken pieces of glass left at the bottom of a playground slide.
Jayda Ormsby-Northcott suffered three large lacerations and nine minor cuts on her bottom in the incident on Saturday night at Frank Kitts Park, after she had attended a concert on the waterfront.
The glass, which she says looked similar to the large beer bottles sold for the annual Crate Day event held last Saturday, had been lodged in the mat at the bottom of the slide.
‘‘There was glass actually stuck in the holes coming out right at the edge of the slide. I went zooming straight across that and shredded my bum,’’ she said.
‘‘It was like being grated. You know when you grate cheese, how it slides over the top of it? It kind of felt like that. I was being sliced. It was really traumatising.’’
Ormsby-Northcott, who had been part of a group of about eight people at the playground, said ‘‘a lot’’ of blood starting pouring down the backs of her legs.
An ambulance was called and took her to hospital, where the cuts, which weren’t deep enough to require stitches, were treated.
Security staff from the event helped her friends clean up the glass.
The way the glass was placed made Ormsby-Northcott, her partner and friends think it had been put there purposely. She said she felt ‘‘disgusted’’ at the possibility that it may have been intentional.
‘‘The glass couldn’t have smashed and landed how it did. I just know that’s wrong.
‘‘If that person did put it there on purpose, what did you want? What made you do that? It could’ve been a kid. Even if you did smash it and it wasn’t on purpose, clean up your mess.’’
Ormsby-Northcott said the timing of the incident ‘‘sucked’’. She recently started a new position in her office-based job, which required her to sit for most of the day.
‘‘It’s been really painful.’’ A Wellington City Council spokeswoman said neither its parks or community services team had received notification of the incident.
‘‘Our maintenance team cleared up some broken glass around the slide area over the weekend but it is not uncommon for bottles and rubbish to be found in this area. Our teams monitor the site regularly.’’
CCTV camera footage of the area was reviewed but other than groups of youths playing on the slide, there didn’t seem to have been any intentional glass breaking or criminal activity, she said.
A Wellington Free Ambulance spokeswoman confirmed that staff attended the incident and transported a patient to hospital in a minor condition.
Ormsby-Northcott said a complaint had been made to police.
‘‘It was like being grated. You know when you grate cheese, how it slides over the top of it? It kind of felt like that.’’ Jayda OrmsbyNorthcott