McDonalds Ball Pit

I was distraught when i recieved this message in my email:
McDonalds, Burger king, Time Zone... All places with ball pits in the
children's play area.

One of my sons lost his watch, and was very upset. We dug and dug in
those balls, trying to find his watch.

Instead, we found vomit, food, faeces, and other stuff I do not want to
discuss.

I went to the manager and raised hell. Come to find out, the ball pit is
only cleaned out once a month. I have doubts that it is even done that
often.

My kids will never play in another ball pit.

Some of you might not be parents, but you may have nieces, nephews,
grandchildren, or friends with children.

This will pertain to you too. As I read the following, my heart sank.

I urge each and every one of you to pass this on to as many people as
you can. I cannot stress how important this is!

Hi. My name is Lauren Archer, my son Kevin and I lived in Melbourne,
Australia.

On October 2nd, 1999 I took my only son to McDonald's for his 3rd birthday.

After he finished lunch, I allowed him to play in the ball pit. When he
started whining later on, I asked him what was wrong, he pointed to the
back of his pull-up and simply said "Mommy, it hurts." I couldn't find
anything wrong with him at that time. I bathed him when we got home, and
it was at that point when I found a welt on his left buttock.

Upon investigating, it seemed as if there was something like a splinter
under

the welt. I made an appointment to see the doctor the next day, but soon
he started vomiting and shaking, then his eyes rolled back into his
head. From there, we went to the emergency room. He died later that night.

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 Kevin 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, faeces, and the stench of urine.

Don't think it's just McDonald's either. A little boy had been playing
in a ball pit @ a Burger King & started complaining of his legs hurting.
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
snake's nest in the ball pit. He had suffered numerous bites from a very
poisonous snake.

What has this world come to??
If a child is not safe in a child's play area then who is??

SPAAAAAAAM. Yeah, ball pits might be nasty places, with a bunch of little germy kids, but there are so many versions of this chain letter that it's hard to tell what's possibly real and what isn't. I know in an earlier version I read, the needle kid didn't die, just went into the doctor.

Here:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/archer.asp

Well, something is clearly wrong with the first post ....
"One of my sons ...."
the poster is 14...

It is spelled FECES.

I know this is a spam chain letter but iI am going to take the opportunity to share my 2 cents:

Any place that is going to have lots of people is going to have lots of germs. Think of all the poeple who don't wash their hands after using the restroom. If you wash yours and touch the handle to leave, you got their germs! Every place you go that has a handle, a cart, buttons to push and things to touch are going to have germs. When you wash your hands, do you turn the faucet off with your clean hands? Baaam! You leave with more germs than you had before washing! With the water still running, dry your hands with a paper towel (germs can travel through water and wet paper towels) then, with your dry hands, get another paper towel to turn off the faucet. You should be using friction and soap and no, hand sanitizer (alcohol gel) does not kill all germs, one in particular C- Diff which can cause life threatening diarrhea and is very contagious. Hand washing 101.

To the person who posted this, did you not know this was an embellished story? The snake pit should have gave it away for sure! LOL. People never cease to amaze me.........

-frowns-

I accept that ball pits arn't always the most hygenic places, but really!

Some kid dying of a heroin OD because of a hyperdermic needle in a Maccy D ball pit? First off if you care so much for your three year old and his well being why start him on junk food and feed him crap at the age of three years old? And why the hell would an IV heroin user leave a pin full of gear in a kids ball pool? even users who arn't addicted arn't going to cook up and then drop their pin in a ball pool and if the child landed on the needle it is highly unlikely that the contents would actually enter the child unless the plunger was pressed by a human being and the needle snapping suggests falling with some force on to the pin which would mean the contents wouldn't have time to empty anyway.

I imagine there is sick and what-not in some ball pools...but it is a parents responsibility to check an area out before letting their child go play there. This is spam, but it's still irritating.

Anyway what is a three year old doing in nappies? stop filling your child with fast food and teach the poor sod to use a toilet maybe?

"It is spelled FECES."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faeces

It's a big world. Get used to it. :-)

But seriously though, don't you all just love that moment when someone new to the internet sends you a horror story email without once verifying its authenticity? My Mum is a sucker for them. Most of the time they're ridiculous right wing English paranoia like "Help Stop The Red Arrows From Being Banned From Flying At The Olympics" or "Jail These Immigrants Who Think Its Okay To Eat YOUR BABIES!" and suchlike...

...okay the last one's an exaggeration, but you get my point. I mean, if you're in a McDonalds restaurant how likely are you to really care that much about your kids' health anyway?

""It is spelled FECES."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faeces

It's a big wold. Get used to it. :-)"

I was thinking the same thing. Lol.

This spam is funny. A bit too far fetched, I say. Haha.

Spam spam spam.
But ball pits are yucky. little kids in concentrated areas of plastic. ew.
-.-

^.^

I highly highly doubt any of that's true but I never liked the ball pits anyways. Run it through factorfiction.net or something. And I bet you anything you got that in an e-mail chain letter.

I dont know how much of that is true but i do know that my nephew did find a hypodermic needle in a ball pit at McDonalds so i will never allow any little kid i know to play in a ball pit again

What the hell are you doing taking your kids to eat fast food in the first place?

Because it's easier than teaching them to hunt.

The Empress: You got a point.

I see nothing more discusting to teach innocent children to eat some **** food.

I thank God every day my mom did not teach me to eat that kind of fast food...