The Consumer Products Safety Commission reports an average of about 215,000 playground-related injuries requiring hospital care for each year from 2001-2008. This is from NEISS (National Electronic Injury Surveillance System), a great tool that tracks hospital visits and reports location, injury type, product associated with the injury, etc. Visit NEISS here to search the system to your heart's content (make sure to look up product codes first in the manual, here.)
A quick search reveals that in 2009, there were 96,780-138,236 hospitalizations due to injuries from "monkey bars, playground gyms, or other climbing apparatus", "seesaws or teeterboards", and "Slides or sliding boards (excluding swimming pool and and ground water slides)". This doesn't even include swings, spring toys, sandboxes, or other unspecified playground accidents!
A 2001 CPSC report indicates that 75% of playground accidents occur on playgrounds intended for public use, and that about half of these occurred on school playgrounds. Read the report here for more juicy tidbits.
We must protect the children, of course, but we must also protect our pocketbooks! A quick Google search reveals settlements in playground accident cases in the millions of dollars. These are rare, yes, but they exist. And as health care costs continue to rise, the smart money is on the average settlement size only increasing over time. The school districts that pay out for the settlements are, of course, funded by you and me and our tax dollars.
So, why should you care?
If you're a parent, care about your children's safety.
If you're an educator, care about the safety of your play equipment.
If you're a taxpayer, care about the tax-dollar-funded settlements.
If you are none of the above, then care about the pain and suffering caused by unnecessary accidents! As a playground-accident survivor (broken arm at age 7), I assure you that they're best to be avoided.
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