SYRACUSE --
No school, lots of snow and bright sun meant kids everywhere were looking for the sleds on Thursday. As the kids prepared to slide down the hills, parents scouted ahead for safe and obstacle free hills.
"They slide wherever and rotate," said Jeff Kowaney after making sure his daughter, Emily, was safe. "You never go straight."
High speeds and hidden dangers mean a lot of sledding accidents across the country. On Wednesday, a young girl was injured when her sled hit a wooden stake at Sunnycrest Park in Syracuse. In 2009, a child died when their sled hit a parked car near Westcott Reservoir in Geddes.
"To a kid a sled is a rocketship going down a hill and it can gain incredible speed very quickly depending on the amount of ice," said Seth Greenky, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Joseph's hospital. "The most frequent injuries - a quarter of the injuries are fractures."
Sledding is prohibited in city parks. Kids were hitting the slopes on the hills around nearby Woodlawn Reservoir on Thursday - but with caution.
Sledder Carleigh Baird said she was avoiding one particularly large jump since "you could actually really hurt yourself."
Doctors recommend that parent make sure kids coming up the hill don't get in the way of sleds heading down the hill. Greenky also said parents should make sure the trail is safe but with some discretion.
"It's an excellent idea, its just that kid that is sledding down doesn't want anyone else to know that's their parent checking out the hill," said Greenky.
Some sledders had their own emergency plan. Haley Summers said she planned to bail out of her sled if it got to close to any trees.
The medical journal "Pediatrics" estimated 20,000 sledding accidents take place every year. Greenky and several other doctors recommend kids wear helmets when sledding.
