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Dad Says Son’s Feet ‘Melted’ After Playing At A Splash Pad

In this hot weather that’s heating up pavements and grounds everywhere, making sure you have proper footwear on is more important than ever.

You might think that being in the water means you’re exempt from needing this kind of protection. Unfortunately, this is far from the case.

As a matter of fact, the highest number of heat burn incidents and injuries occur in the water, when you’re lulled into a false sense of security and are more likely to decide it’s okay to sprint over hot ground since you’ve just come out of the cool water.

As an example, let’s refer to the case of Joe Maffia, which happened back in June.

After hanging out and spending time on the beach, he stepped onto some concrete barefooted.

Within ten seconds, the bottoms of his feet were suffering immensely.

He had to be admitted to the hospital with second-degree burns, and he spoke on a local news network to warn others against stepping barefoot on any concrete surface, even for the briefest amounts of time.

No signs were present on the beach where this incident took place that gave any warning to those visiting about the dangers of walking barefoot or without proper footwear.

Naturally, many individuals do believe that it should be mandatory for beaches to have these warnings.

Yet, as with all accidents, they don’t only occur where you may expect.

Sometimes, the most unexpected places can result in injuries.

This means it’s not just pavements alone that you should be extra mindful of, but everything in your surroundings as well.

This was, sadly, a lesson learned the hard way for this father from Seattle, who has for children.

Andrew Sechrist had taken his children out to a park nearby.

They were going to play in a nice cool splash pad, enjoying the water on a sweltering day – basically, it sounded like the perfect way to enjoy the summer and make the most of the bright weather.

But then, just 15 minutes into the fun, Andrew heard his son Jackson screaming in agony.

He had fallen over and was crying and shouting just five feet away from one of the toys.

Andrew thought his son had fallen over and went to try to soothe him.

He decided to bring Jackson over to a different area of the splash pad, but Jackson wouldn’t stop wailing.

Andrew decided to head off and dry his son down so he could figure out what was wrong – and that’s when he noticed the state of Jackson’s feet.

The skin looked as though it had completely melted off and heat was coming off of them in waves.

But this time, it wasn’t a concrete path that had done this.

Very close to the splash pad was a metal electrical grate, and, as we all know, metal has a tendency to get very, very hot when the sun’s out.

Q13 Fox came around and tested its temperature later on and discovered that, at the time of the accident, the grate would have been sitting at a whopping 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

Jackson had simply walked over it, and the damage was done.