What Everyone Should Know About Fast Food Ball Pits

Has your child ever played in a ball pit at a playground in a fast food restaurant? Or, for that matter anywhere else that might feature such fun, like a fair or a carnival? Or, if you don’t have any children of your own, have you ever bounced around in glee through an overwhelming abundance of colorful plastic balls? Chances are you answered in the affirmative to at least one of these questions. I know I have, I always got excited when I was younger and encountered a McDonald’s or Burger King with an added playground for extra enjoyment. My siblings and I would always rush through our meals to try and maximize our play time on the slides, jungle gym, etc. while our parents finished. Little did we know we were endangering ourselves everytime we so willingly flung our bodies into the mysterious ball pit.

Recently I came across some disturbing stories through an email my fiancee received from a friend. It was sort of a public service announcement, but its content was so troubling that it would never make it to TV. So I’m posting it on AC in hopes that it will reach as many people as possible. My intention is not so much as to frighten you (although, I must admit it scared the sh## out of me) but rather to raise a level of awareness that everyone, especially parents and caretakers of the young, should consider.

The first horror story involves a young boy losing his wrist watch in a ball pit at a popular chain restaurant. The specific name of the restaurant won’t be mentioned because the audacity of this account should not and is not limited to just one specific play area. Once the boy discovered he lost his watch his mother concluded that it must of came off in the ball pit, so they went back into the pit and began digging around for it. It didn’t take long before they realized they were digging deeper into that pit than anyone, including employess of the restaurant, had apparently ever bothered to. They never found the boys watch, but they did find vomit, feces, and old rotting food amongst the plastic balls.

As would be expected the mother quickly pulled her son out of the pit and went to the manager to complain. This wasn’t a typical complaint, like I asked you to hold the onions, it was an outrageous complaint so understandably the mother was quite upset. After the manager had settled her down some he assured her that the pit was emptied and cleaned once a month and that her finds were extremely rare. She left the restaurant with her son, knowing that even if the pits were cleaned that often, which she doubted, that once a month was just not enough.

A second horror story involves a Tennessee family who visited a McDonald’s restaurant to celebrate their son’s third birthday. As it usually happens the child finished his meal before his parents and was allowed some play time in the restaurant’s ball pit. Later that day the young boy complained about a pain he was feeling in his rear end. That night when the mother was bathing him she found a welt on the boy’s left buttock. It appeared there was a splinter or something encased under the welt. The mother made an appointment with the family doctor for the next day. But, that night the boy began vomitting and shaking and his eyes rolled back into his head.

The mother rushed him to the emergency room but it wasn’t long before the boy died. It turned out that the welt on his buttock was the tip of a hypodermic needle that had broken off inside. The autopsy revealed that he had died from a heroine overdose. The next week, the police removed the balls from the ball pit. There was rotten food, several hypodermic needles: some full, some used; knives, half-eaten candy, diapers, feces, and the stench of urine.

A third account, this one coming from a Burger King restaurant (remember I said the reality of these threats was not limited to just one fast food joint) involved a young boy who complained of pains in his legs’ after playing in a ball pit. He later died too. He was found to have snake bites all over his legs & buttocks. When they cleaned the ball pit they found that there was a copperhead nest in the ball pit. He had suffered numerous bites from a very poisonous snake.

After reading these stories I hope you take careful consideration the next time your child asks to play in a fast food playground area. I can not imagine the pain suffered by any one of these families and can only hope that as a society we can learn something from these awful tragedies.