Monkey Bars

ruby_jane, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2019

11 minutes ago, BluebellRN said:
Are the bane of my existence. In the past couple weeks I've had two broken arms from monkey bar falls. With just a day and half between me and spring break, if another kid falls, I might go tear the thing down myself!
On the positive, the ER DR commented to mom that it was smart of whoever splinted the kid's arm with a magazine. Kid told the doc it was the school nurse. ?

BANE of my existence. Amen. The potential cost (broken extremities) really seem to outweigh the potential benefit of the monkey bars.

And yay, you!! We learned about that at our childrens' hospital annual update but I have yet to put it into practice.

OldDude · Mar 27, 2019

There are things about recess that I've come to conclude will never change and playground supervision is one of them.

Another thing is, how many fractures occur from relatively minor mechanisms of injury. For instance, a kid hanging from the monkey bars, with their feet only two feet from the ground, let's go, lands off balance, and fractures their distal radius and ulna.

I think recess at school is the only time most of these kids get outside and flex and stress their musculoskeletal system so they are not conditioned for even minor physical stress on their bodies...just my theory.

LikeTheDeadSea, MSN, RN · Mar 27, 2019

I will have recess staff ban a piece of playground equipment for a few days to make a point to students that if they can't be responsible/safe on equipment that it will go away. When it returns I won't hear anything for awhile.

Eleven011 · Mar 27, 2019

My own son broke his arm on the monkey bars on the 3rd day of Kindergarten. We haven't had a typical playground for 2 years due to our new school construction going on, but I'm anxious (or not) to see what the plans are for then new one going up for next fall. Hopefully no monkey bars!

Guests · Mar 27, 2019

I still remember back in the 80's doing penny drops, death drops, and suicides on the monkey bard and they were mounted on hard, packed mud ? There were plenty of injuries for sure!

MrNurse(x2), ADN · Mar 27, 2019

My playground culprits are the natural apparatus, but the monkey bars used to send in many. The irony? My wife and I bought the monkey bars for our school because they had no "traditional" equipment.

k1p1ssk, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2019

I agree there must be something about either supervision or lack of necessary skills. I grew up in the 90s; We had a traditional (and HUGE) playground set up, with a structure that was full of slides and ramps, climbing ladders of various sizes and types, and some twisting monkey bars. There were also a set of monkey bars that were 15ft off the ground. I remember climbing up on to the top of them and just sitting with my friends all of recess. There were always around 120 kids out at recess with 2-3 monitors, but I can count on 1 hand the number of serious injuries that occurred during recess in all my years in elementary school, and none were broken bones.

I guess we were just one school, but what has changed?

BrisketRN, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2019

My husband broke his arm on the monkey bars his first day of kindergarten. He didn't want to be a bother so he told the school nurse he felt fine. It was actually broken in 2 places, and he came home with a dangling arm. That would have been the late 90s.

Guests · Mar 27, 2019

27 minutes ago, BiscuitRN said:
My husband broke his arm on the monkey bars his first day of kindergarten. He didn't want to be a bother so he told the school nurse he felt fine. It was actually broken in 2 places, and he came home with a dangling arm. That would have been the late 90s.

And his mom didn't call the school nurse and scream at her???????? ?

BrisketRN, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2019

2 minutes ago, MHDNURSE said:
And his mom didn't call the school nurse and scream at her???????? ?

I am sorry to say--I know my mother-in-law--and yes 100% she screamed at everyone involved except her precious baby.

lyrern · Mar 27, 2019

The PE teacher and I gathered the research and presented it to the principal, and we had all the grades second and under banned from the monkey bars. This happened after an open fracture of a second grader while playing on the monkey bars. The majority of children under eight do not have the grip strength or the arm span to adequately play on the bars; the research we found supports this. That principal retired, and the next one reinstated allowing all ages on it. Yes, we have had a couple of accidents since then. Also along these lines, I was once told by a non-nursing person in the education hierarchy to not chart "monkey bars" but "overhead ladders" due to legal reasons.