A criminal case has been initiated against the owner of a play park where a nine-year-old boy broke his back on a homemade treetop zip line for kids.
Zhenya Raushanova, went with her three children to celebrate the graduation of her eldest son in a play park in the city of Volgograd, Russia, on 28th May.
According to Zhenya, when she arrived at the park, she was shocked when she saw how it was working with only very minimal of the basic safety precautions. She had wanted to leave straight away, but realised that the children would have been disappointed and therefore decided to stay a short while.
It is a decision she now regrets.
She said: “The trampolines there are just springs from a bed on tires, the swings are tires tied to a rope.
“The children played one game, and I asked the eldest then if we could leave. But the other sons begged to stay longer. I pushed my daughter on a swing, and filmed my eldest son as he rolled down on a treetop zip line.
“At some point, my daughter began to cry, I was distracted by her – she was knocked off the swing.
“I ran to her. The eldest son also saw this and came to us. We calmed her down and at some point, we realized that Tamerlan was gone. We of course went to look for him.
“We ran to the treetop zip line, and my son was lying there and crying in pain.
“One of the men said: ‘Don’t touch him under any circumstances, don’t lift him.’ We immediately called an ambulance. I don’t even remember this moment. Everything was like a fog.”
Zhenya said that she was even more shocked to find out that there was only one person working at the site.
She said: “We spent two days in the hospital. On 1st June, we were stunned by the news that Tamerlan had a compression fracture of the spine.”
Tamerlan had to undergo a complex treatment and had spent the entire summer in the hospital, tied to his bed.
He is now studying from home since he is not able to go to school.
“My son is taking it all very hard. He’s my cadet, he’s a football player.
“Now he keeps saying that he is disabled. When we arrived at school, he is not the same boy any more … he did not communicate with his classmates and friends.
“I am feeling lost myself, it is very hard, even though he can now sit down and stand up, but only in a corset.
“Unfortunately, this injury became the starting point for other health problems. His eyesight began to deteriorate, he lost a lot of weight, he began to have neck problems and now there is scoliosis.
She added: “I hired a lawyer. He said that in any case with such injuries it is necessary to demand compensation for treatment and moral damage.
“I didn’t need money, I just wanted the bungee to be closed or fixed so that the children could be there safely. I wrote a complaint.”
The company that provided the equipment Dream and Development LLC, informed Zhenya that they only provide services for organizing an event but the responsibility lies with the park owner Evgeniy Kostenko.
Kostenko told local media: “An investigation is currently underway, we haven’t been told anything yet. We, in turn, are conducting our own check, trying to find out whether this woman and her children were with us or not.
“She actually sent us a claim, but she asked for a simply unrealistic amount, without providing any medical documents or justification for these figures.”
Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Volgograd Region said in a statement obtained by Newsflash on 1st December: “The investigative department for the Voroshilovsky district of the city of Volgograd of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the region opened a criminal case against a 41-year-old man.
“He is suspected of committing a crime under paragraph ‘c’ of Part 2 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (provision of services that do not meet safety requirements, resulting in negligence in causing grievous harm to health).
“According to the investigation, the defendant, being an individual entrepreneur, provided for a fee the opportunity to use the facilities located in the park at the address: Volgograd, Nezhdanova Street 14a, including the bungee ride, which he built with his own hands in violation of safety regulations.
“On 28th May, 2023, an 8-year-old boy, while in the park, was going down the bungee ride. At the same time, at the end of the route, the minor fell, receiving a compression fracture of the thoracic vertebrae.
“A criminal case was initiated after the mother of the child contacted the Russian Investigative Committee.”
The investigation is ongoing.
