What was supposed to be a day out with the family nearly turned into a nightmare after a mum spotted razor blades sticking out of a playground slide moments before her daughter used it.
Felicia Pope was enjoying some fresh air with her husband and three-year-old little girl at the Schroeder Park in Anchorage, Alaska, when her daughter Abigail demanded to use the slide.
But as the girl prepared to roll down, the eagle-eyed mum noticed razor blades on the contraption and immediately rushed to stop the three-year-old.
Pope said: “I ran as fast as my body would let me run — even faster. And if you see the playground, I had to crawl underneath really quickly and jump back up and grab her. It all happened so quickly.”
The woman managed to stop Abigail just in time and pointed out she would likely have been severely harmed because of the positioning of the blades.
For all the latest on news, politics, sports, and showbiz from the USA, go to Daily Express US
She added: “It was designed to catch a kid at max force with gravity working against them. It was designed to harm.”
Pope’s husband immediately called the police and officers found more blades near the staircase of the playground structure.
Following the incident, police have been monitoring the park closely to avoid future incidents with children playing n the area.
Pope said she was distressed following the near-miss as the family recently moved from Philadelphia to Anchorage to escape the crime-riddled city.
She told KTUU: “We are from the East Coast, the greater Philadelphia area. I’ve never heard of anybody putting razor blades (on slides), but I have heard of children being killed by stray bullets.
“We left that area and travelled 4,000 miles to the Last Frontier to get back to some old-fashioned ways of living.”
Police are still investigating the case but because no one was harmed, a culprit would likely only face a vandalism charge if caught.
Similar incidents were reported all over the United States in recent years. In 2020, parents reported finding 41 razor blades at a playground in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. Another 39 blades were found at nearby Howe Park.
A two-year-old boy injured his hands after he cut himself on razor blades glued on playground structures in an East Moline, Illinois park in 2014.
