RIVIERA BEACH --

Broken metal, cracked plastic and exposed nails.

[cleeng_content id="682818993" description="Why stop now? It's just getting interesting!" price="0.99" referral="0.10"]These are just a few of the problems the Contact 5 investigators discovered at area playgrounds.

Carl Abraham is a recreational safety consultant who has testified in hundreds of playground injury cases.

He says the most common playground peril is under your feet.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Society for Testing and Materials have standards for safe surfacing cover that include 12 inches of fresh mulch, pea gravel, sand, rubber mulch or wood chips.

In Riviera Beach, not far from the newly restored Wells Recreation Center and newly designed municipal playground on Singer Island, is Monroe Heights Park.

“I can see right away there are problems here,” said Abraham who pointed to the dirt surface as a top concern.

“This is like a rock, this is unacceptable,” he said.

Also a safety concern, according to Abraham, a rocking dinosaur missing its handle and the park’s only climbing apparatus was missing several steps.

“There’s no defense to this,” he said. “If a child was playing on this and did fall, it’s an excellent case against the municipality, without any question. Either make it safe and bring back new equipment or remove everything.”

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