A mother has sworn off bringing her kids to the popular Art-Zoo Inflatable Park after an alleged incident that saw her young daughter hospitalized when she sustained a serious injury while playing on a bouncy slide.
As part of i Light Marina Bay 2018, Art-Zoo returned in March — it’s an experiential art playground featuring gigantic, quirky inflatable animals where both adults and kids can frolic on and have a grand old time bouncing about. It’s wholesome, safe fun, verily assured on the Art-Zoo website.
According to Joanna Shen’s now-viral Facebook post, however, her daughter apparently broke her arm while sliding down the Magical Rainbow cluster. Her story went into dramatic territory when she alleged that there weren’t any medically-trained staff around to attend to her injured daughter and that an Art-Zoo manager became uncontactable despite initial promises to assist the family.
It’s a bit of a long read, so here’s a summary of what allegedly took place during the family’s visit on March 23.
- Shen visited the park with her “barely three-year-old” daughter, her mother, her sister, and the sister’s boyfriend.
- After playing on two bouncy set-ups, the child wanted to try out the inflatable slide.
- Shen tried to look for any signs that spelled out height restrictions or safety precautions for the slide. None were spotted. An Art-Zoo staff manning the set-up let her and her daughter in.
- Another staff member at the top of the slide told Shen that they had to slide separately. The mother let the toddler slide down first.
- Halfway down the slide, the girl tumbled and landed on her back and started wailing. Upon closer inspection for injuries, Shen saw the girl’s “limp left arm dangling from the flesh from the upper arm”.
- No medic was available, but the daughter was brought to a rest station and was apparently given two packs of melted ice.
- No ambulance was called in, but staff member booked a Grab ride to the Singapore General Hospital for the mother and her child.
- The doctors at SGH were said to be unable to attend to her daughter due to her being below three years of age. “…one of the doctors ascertained that she will require sedation due to likelihood of a broken arm.”
- They were then rushed to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. There, the doctors gave the child an X-Ray examination.
- A surgery was required with general anesthetic, but it could only be carried out the next morning. In the meantime, they inserted wires into the injured arm to hold the bones in place. The girl was hospitalized for three days, wrote Shen, and a cast was needed to stay on the child’s arm for more than a month.
“Clearly, they did not feel responsible for the accident”
What made Shen angrier was the alleged spurning of responsibility by Art-Zoo. She claimed that a manager for the inflatable park called her and assured that they’d handle the hospital bills after settling the matter with their insurers. But after several days, the manager became uncontactable, Shen wrote, and her entrance ticket purchase wasn’t refunded. She attached screen grabs of the messages exchanged with the manager.
“Sure, accidents happen and as parents we have the responsibility to make sure our kids are safe BUT having NO medic, giving us MELTED ice packs, NO ambulance to standby during an event which is meant for kids to play, surely the organiser of this #Artzoo does NOT give a hoot about what happens when accidents happen because they just want to save costs by NOT putting any First Aid in place?? What kind of event is this??”
Clearly, the mother continues to be highly distressed about the incident — Shen claimed that she was “still haunted” by the accident as her toddler’s arm remains in a cast today.
In response to our queries, the Art-Zoo management team noted that they are indeed aware of the incident and have since reached out directly to the family.
“The well-being of every visitor is important to us and our priority now is to see how best to assist, and we are resolving the matter privately with the family,” the team wrote in a statement to Coconuts Singapore. “Our current focus is on them at this moment.”
Editor’s Note: Article updated to reflect Art-Zoo’s response on the matter.
