'Creeped out': Mum's panic after distressing find near park sandpit
A woman has described the moment her heart sank when she found an empty syringe wrapper near a sandpit her children were playing in.
The woman visited the Pioneers Memorial Park in Leichhardt in Sydney’s Inner West with her children when she became “a little nervous not knowing if there might be cat poo or possum wee” in the sandpit.
But little did she expect to find something that would make her more uneasy.
“Oh, how naive can one be? Then I looked down, just beyond the sandpit where the children were running around shoeless was an empty syringe wrapper,” the mum wrote on a Facebook group.
“My heart sank. Suffice to say we bundled our little ones up and moved away. (No actual syringe was sighted).”
The mum then asked if other parents were concerned about what lurked in public sandpits.
“It makes me feel incredibly uneasy about risks like needles if a person injected near the playground,” she wrote.
“I think this playground needs an overhaul.”
One mum said she would never allow children in those areas without shoes as it “creeps” her out.
Another claimed she personally did not want her kid playing amongst drug paraphernalia while one said she avoided public sandpits after finding a watch battery sitting near her 18-month-old.
However, others claimed the wrapper may have been completely innocent.
“While there are a lot of bad people around this wrapper could be innocent,” one said.
“What if a mum had the syringe in the wrapper for pain relief like Panadol for her teething baby, maybe she didn’t realise the wrapper blew out of her pram/bag.
“Things we find aren’t always on the bad side.”
An Inner West Council spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia drug use in this location was not a known issue.
There are no recent recorded complaints to council regarding drug use in Leichhardt Memorial Park.
“The park is inspected by maintenance staff daily to ensure any issues are addressed. Crews rake the sandpit three days a week and it is checked for broken glass etc daily,” the council said.
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