Six-year-old boy dead after sledding incident in Quebec park, police say

A six-year-old has died after a sledding accident in Chambly, Que., and the coroner is investigating.

A six-year-old boy is dead after a sledding incident at Robert-Lebel Park in Chambly, Que., on Monday afternoon.

Emergency services were called to the scene in Quebec’s Montérégie region at 2:50 p.m.

When officers arrived, they located the boy with “serious head injuries,” according to Sgt. Marie-Ève Boulanger, a spokesperson with Richelieu Saint-Laurent Intermunicipal police.

He was transported to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Local police confirmed he struck a pole. A coroner’s investigation is underway.

“Our heart goes out to the family, as well as the witnesses to the accident,” said Chambly Mayor Alexandra Labbé.

Labbé said the sledding hill at the park, as well as the skating rink and ice surface, will remain closed for an undetermined period of time to allow investigators to analyze the scene.

“Many of the activities planned for spring break are still going ahead,” she said, emphasizing the municipality’s goal of providing safe facilities. “Only this site is closed.”

Wear a helmet

The Montreal Children’s Hospital says since November, it has seen 250 different types of traumatic injuries in children from winter sports, including ice skating, skiing, snowboarding and sledding.

Fifty of those incidents were related to sledding.

“What bothers me a little bit is that when I’m looking at the cases, only about 20 per cent of the kids were actually wearing helmets when on the tobogganing hills, which is low,” said Debbie Friedman, trauma director at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

She points out that winter conditions often dictate the volume and types of injuries seen in the hospital.

This winter’s freeze-thaw cycle, Friedman notes, has made for particularly icy conditions.

“The conditions that concern me the most are the ones where there are these radical changes in the temperatures, like we’ve been seeing, because then you tend to get more icy conditions,” she explained.

In those conditions, bales of hay often positioned at the end of slopes can turn into concrete-like bricks.

“No injury is really a good injury. What we see with tobogganing is we see all types of severities with head injuries and traumas, facial traumas, dental traumas, fractures of the arms and legs and ribs, abdominal traumas, Friedman added.

In addition to encouraging constant parental supervision, Friedman is also warning people to assess the risks of any hill - such as trees, poles or roads - and check weather conditions to ensure they are “conducive to a safe day of fun.”

“Not every hill makes for a toboggan hill,” she concludes.

Wide-open space

The sliding hill at Robert-Lebel Park ends in wide-open spaces, so authorities say it’s unclear what happened.

“We are going to wait for the coroner’s recommendations to have the right information to know what measures we need to take, but our objective is to have the safest environment,” said Labbé.

With files from CTV News’ Kelly Greig and The Canadian Press