Any playground comes with risks. If children are using equipment against its intended purpose or if there is excessive horseplay, accidents can happen. Parents trust, however, that the play structures at schools are generally safe, which is why news of an 8-year-old boy dying after flying from a slide on the school playground has shocked so many.
Utah elementary school student Dallin Cunningham died in 2023 during recess on the Rose Springs Elementary School playground. This was undoubtedly a parent’s worst nightmare. But what happened, and should the school be held accountable? His parents say yes.
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Cunningham reportedly ‘flew out’ of the slide 7 feet above the ground and later died.
Cunningham was playing on his Erda, Utah, school’s playground in February 2023 when he decided to go down a corkscrew slide. The 8-year-old reportedly “flew out” 7 feet above the ground, landing on the “frozen rock-hard" ground. He died at a hospital one day later, on February 7, as a result of blunt force trauma to his head, The Sacramento Bee reported.
Now, his parents are suing the school district.
The boy’s parents, Timothy and Kathryn Cunningham, filed a wrongful death lawsuit on March 4, 2024, the New York Post reported. They are suing the Tooele County School District for negligence and seeking reimbursement for their son’s medical expenses, which total $90,000.
According to the suit, the district already covered the student’s burial expenses. The district said it could not comment “due to the open and active litigation,” the Bee reported.
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The Cunninghams allege 'unreasonably dangerous' conditions at the playground.
The lawsuit claims that the school district failed to properly supervise children using the playground equipment. Additionally, it alleges the district allowed “unreasonably dangerous” conditions. This includes the slide being “excessively fast and steep,” along with it lacking guardrails, per The Bee.
His parents also cite playground standards involving mulch.
The lawsuit alleges there wasn’t enough mulch “below the slide in freezing temperatures” to absorb “the hard impact of Dallin’s fall.” It cites that standards are 12 inches of mulch below the slide with the potential of compressing, at a minimum, to 9 inches. Rose Springs Elementary School, by contrast, only measured “1 inch in depth before being frozen solid underneath.”
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Dallin Cunningham is remembered as a ‘perfect, imperfect 8-year-old little boy.’
Dallin’s obituary described him as a “perfect, imperfect eight-year-old little boy” who “sometimes teas[ed], sometimes antagoniz[ed], but [was] always in love for his three sisters, his mommy, and daddy.”
He enjoyed video games, board games, reading, and playing soccer, among other hobbies, per the obituary. “We are heartbroken,” his family wrote in the obituary. “We will miss his smiles, hugs, cuddles, jokes, playful spirit, and his amazing mind.”
