NSW parents blame ‘alarming’ playground design after toddler hit by e-bike

“If nothing's done, you're looking at a guarantee that something like this will happen again. What do they say then?” asked frustrated dad, Nic.

Alexandra Feiam

3 min read

August 21, 2024 - 9:24AM

Family Life

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Parents of a toddler who was hit by an e-bike while playing at her local playground have blamed the poor design for the accident and are urging for action.

Ella, the 21-month-old, was running around the playground in Newcastle, NSW, in late July. Her mother was watching the toddler while her husband Nic kept an eye on the two eldest kids, aged four and six.

The marine-themed playground, complete with a pirate ship, stands opposite a large body of water; a shared bike path is on the other side, intended for bicycles, scooters and e-bikes.

In a fraction of a second, Ella ran onto the path of an oncoming e-bike, knocking her to the ground head-first, the bike collapsing on her upon impact.

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The toddler was hit by an e-bike. Picture: A Current Affair

“‘Is she going to go to heaven, mum?”

“She was hit square in the back and landed face forward,” mum Alyce told Kidspot in early August.

The NSW mum recalled “screaming” at the sight, running towards Ella, who “began to wail hysterically”.

“When I picked her up, she didn’t have a graze on her body other than a huge lump on her forehead - she took all the impact to her head,” she said.

The cyclist, who stopped and carried the toddler from the road, asked if the toddler was OK.

Witnesses reportedly told the cyclist that he was “going way too fast” in an area so close to children playing. “What were you thinking?” the woman asked the cyclist. “This is a kids’ park!”

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Alyce and Nic rushed their toddler to the hospital, who was “crying hysterically” in the backseat of their car.

“I was so upset to see her this way, which in turn was horrible for my older kids, who were all in the car and utterly distraught,” Alyce told Kidspot. “As we drove to the ED, one asked, ‘Is she going to go to heaven, mum?’ It was heartbreaking.”

Thankfully, Ella was assessed by doctors and given pain relief, and while the bump on her head is pretty sore, she’s currently on the mend and “back to her bubbly self”.

But Ella was extraordinarily lucky, her mum said. “The medical team told us … if the bike had hit her in a slightly different spot, she could be dead.”

Ella is on the mend, but her injuries could have been far worse. Picture: A Current Affair

“Unfortunately, they all think they're on the Tour de France”

While their toddler is “back to her bubbly self” following the horrifying accident, Alyce and Nic are desperate for something to be done.

The Newcastle parents don’t blame the cyclist for the accident. “I knew he was remorseful; I knew he accidentally did it,” Dad Nic told A Current Affair. “He's glad to hear that Ella's going to be OK.”

However, they’re terrified it could happen again, with an even worse outcome. Locals said this was an accident waiting to happen, arguing that the playground design was “pretty unsafe”.

“All of a sudden, there’s a bike flying through,” one resident said. “Unfortunately, they all think they're on the Tour de France,” said another.

Nic and Alyce agree and want to implement “big changes” to the playground to improve its overall safety, including better signage and a fence around the playground to separate the kids from the cyclists.

“If nothing's done, you're looking at a guarantee that something like this will happen again. What do they say then?” Nic said.

“Something needs to happen before something bad happens,” Alyce added.

Russell White, Chair of the Australian Road Safety Foundation, said something “more proactive” has to be done to stop future accidents.

“One of [the] things that's alarming … about the design of this particular park is the relatively short space between the edge of the playground and the footpath or bikeway where there's obviously a fair bit of traffic,” he said.