Children, in general, have a blood-chilling gift for getting hurt in the most innocuous of circumstances. The good news is that most days guardian angels seem to step in and mitigate the damage for most of us. Such was not the case this week for Chavis Berley.
The untimely death of this bright-eyed little boy on a neighbor's playset puts a new face on the jungle gym you already have, or the one Santa was in line to bring. Seemingly innocent and harmless looking places can be deadly to youngsters: a mosquito-ridden patch of woods (West Nile), an unemptied kiddie pool (drowning), poinsettias (poisonous), splashing in the bath (slip and fall).
Now is an excellent time to rethink your own safety precautions and remember to not trust in others to have thought of it for you. Our local parks and places like Dreher Island State Park do a fine job of putting proper surfaces underneath play structures. But those precautions are only as safety-oriented as the kids on the structures. Swings are for swinging, steps are for climbing and so on. Plenty of parents let their kids run a little wild on the local playgrounds. After all, isn't that what those places are for-somewhere to let off some steam?
Paranoia is no way to live, and no one blames the adults around Chavis for his death. Accidents happen, sometimes with tragic results. But we say just maybe we all need to reassess our own safety measures. Perhaps if the grown ones among us take this tragedy, this boy's death, and let it serve as a wakeup call to taste a little healthy paranoia for the sake of our little ones-well then maybe Chavis can live on in some other child's good fortune. Maybe another little one will not meet such a tragic fate, and we will all have one particular guardian angel to thank.
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