There is only so much you can do to protect your kids, and sometimes terrible and tragic accidents happen. A 12-year-old boy was found hanging from a zipwire line in his backyard Wednesday. His mother went out to look for him after he'd been outside for half an hour and discovered her son dead. Apparently, part of his helmet or a strap got caught in the wire and he was strangled. There's no sign of foul play or even blame — the zipline had been installed by professionals and the mother called 911 as soon as she made the horrifying discovery. It's just a horrible tragedy that makes no sense. And that, maybe, is the scariest part about it.
You can force your kids to wear bike helmets and only ride on the sidewalk, you can give them five servings of vegetables a day, you can help them with their homework, and you can wash their clothes with organic detergent, but freak accidents still happen. No matter how wonderful a parent you are, you can't keep an eye on them 24/7.
Sometimes that means they come home with a scrape, sometimes that means they're caught cheating on a spelling test, and sometimes, as is the case with this Roos family in Redmond, Washington, your young son Jackson dies while playing in your backyard.
Detectives have taken down the zipline, which was 20 feet long and 20 feet off the ground, and will investigate the accident, but I'm sure they won't find anything. There are no answers that will make the Roos family feel better — it's just a nonsensical accident. The type that most parents dread.
What do you think?
Photo via psd/Flickr