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A woman said her son, a school athlete, was injured on a piece of playground equipment at Desert Sky Park and wanted Gilbert to pay $100,000 to settle the claim.

But the town ignored the claim, submitted July 27. State law considers a claim denied if no action is taken within 60 days.

“Yes, I will be filing suit,” said Stephanie Gittings last week. She declined to give her son’s age but the claim said he is a minor.

The Town Attorney’s Office issued a statement, saying the park has had millions of visitors over the past three years and that “the fitness course and playground equipment were designed, manufactured, and installed in accordance with the standards set forth in the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Handbook for Public Playground Safety.”

“In addition, playground equipment at Desert Sky Park – like all Town parks – are maintained according to industry-approved standards and are inspected on a regular basis,” the statement said. “Injuries occur from time to time on playground equipment at Town-owned parks, and when notified of injuries, the Town investigates the circumstances surrounding the injury to determine the cause.

“The Town denies any allegations that the fitness equipment at Desert Sky Park was deficient and that it failed to maintain fitness equipment at Desert Sky Park. “

The incident occurred Feb. 19 when the boy, who’s 5’4” tall and weighs 120 pounds, fell from the Extreme Jump Hang, a playground obstacle course. 

The town debuted the first phase of Desert Sky, a 115-acre park between Pecos and Williams Field roads, in November 2019, touting a 3.-5-acre lake and the American-Ninja warrior-style obstacle course for teens and adults.

“My son suffered a severe break in his arm,” Gittings said in her claim. “This resulted in an emergency department visit, required re-setting, temporary casting, and will require further care from an orthopedic surgeon.

“Additionally, as a result of this fall, he has suffered other soft-tissue injuries about his other arm, tailbone and back.”

Gittings said due to the injuries, her son had to miss several days of school and his spring season of football.

He was in a cast for six weeks, a structured base for three weeks, could not participate in spring break activities and was prohibited from any contact sports for 16 weeks, she said.

She added that her son’s medical bills so far tallied over $5,000 and continue to increase.

“We don’t know the full extent of the damage to the soft tissue, whether or not my son will ever regain full and uninhibited use of his left arm, or what future loss he might have due to these injuries,” Gittings said. “He has endured physical pain and suffering as well as significant emotional distress resulting from being excluded from now a second season of his favorite sport.

“He has spent approximately 150 hours doing non-contact conditioning for a season that he will not be able to participate in. My son has been a multi-sport, year-round athlete for six-plus years and this news is devastating to him.”

She added that her son is under doctor’s orders to wear a brace at all times and not push or pull anything.

Gittings added that she has experienced a financial loss in registration fees and equipment purchased for a sport her son “cannot play for the foreseeable future.”

Gittings faulted the town for negligence after she examined the maintenance logs and other records she received from Gilbert through a records request.

“According to town maintenance records, the Town failed to properly maintain and correct known deficiencies of the installed equipment, signage, and surface protection for the better part of the 12 months that preceded my son’s injury,” Gittings said.

She said that the maintenance crew beginning in April 2021 “began consistently noting the need for maintenance of the surface protection” and that a June 2021 inspection pointed out the need to replace the surface protection.

However, instead of replacing it, “the town continued to rake the surface protection one day per month on the date of inspection as a Band-Aid to the known deficiency,” Gittings said.

“In January and February 2022, it is again noted that the surface protection needs replacement. The repeated use of this technique despite knowing replacement was required led to my son’s serious injury.”

She said it was unknown if her son’s fall would have led to injury had the surface protection been adequate.

“But what we do know is that the extent of his injures was a direct result of impact almost directly onto subsurface,” she said.

She cited the American Society for Testing and Materials’ standard for playground surfacing that calls for 9 inches of surface protection for falls greater than 4 feet. At the time of her son’s accident, the surface protection was “not even 1 inch deep where he landed,” she claimed.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, surfaces around playground equipment should have at least 12 inches of wood chips, mulch, sand, or pea gravel, or are mats made of safety-tested rubber or rubber-like materials.

Gittings also claimed that in September 2021, the maintenance crew began noticing a bent washer on the playground equipment and that the reports continued through February 2022, according to the latest reports she received from the town.

And, in October 2021, the town noticed the instructional sign for the Jump Hang was missing and “it is largely unclear who this equipment is targeted towards,” she said. “This equipment is predominately used by young children as a result of ineffective danger warnings.”

She noted that she’s observed children between 8-10 years old using the Jump Hang and witnessed their repeated falls to the ground.

This is not the first time that people have claimed to have been injured on playground equipment at Gilbert parks. Two women filed separate claims for injuries they said they incurred while going down a concrete slide at Gilbert Regional Park.