Playground full of glass

Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

An RCMP officer looks at playground equipment at Dale Meadows. 

District of Summerland employees and an RCMP officer climbed on equipment  and combed the sand at Dale Meadows Playground on Wednesday, looking for glass.

Scott Weatherhead, parks foreman for the district, said he received an email at around 6:30 a.m. letting him know about the situation.

He and two other district employees were quick to respond.

"When we got here, it was all cleaned up, no glass at all that we could see," he said. "But pictures we received showed two pieces of glass sticking up vertically on the top of the slide, broken glass everywhere on the platform entering the slide and glass stuck on the apparatus on the climbing wall."

In addition to looking at the playground equipment, Weatherhead said he planned to go through the sand with a beach cleaner.

The Summerland staff will also continue to monitor the situation.

"There's broken glass in all of our parks, but this is out of the usual and of great concern to the district, because someone is obviously trying to harm the playground users," he said.

Summerland RCMP Cst. Richard Schuhmacher arrived at the scene around 10:45 a.m., after receiving a call about the glass on the children's equipment at the park.

"We are obviously concerned for the children, we all have kids of our own, and don't want anything bad to happen," he said.

As of mid-day Wednesday, he said he had not received reports of this happening at any other parks, but planned to check up on others in the district.

A woman who was throwing a ball for her dog Chance, said the dog came home with a cut on his paw after playing on the grass near the playground on Tuesday.

In the backseat of her car was a bloodstained blanket used by Chance after the incident.

"It's terrible he cut his paw," she said. "What really scares me is that just on Monday, I saw moms there with real little ones crawling in the sand."

Anyone with information on the glass in the park is asked to call the Summerland RCMP detachment or Crime Stoppers.

Send photos and video to [email protected].

Photo: Contributed