Two-Year-Old Boy Burned by Acid on Playground Slide

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Two-year-old Peyton Duschi had every reason to believe that the slide he was about to play on was perfectly safe. He had been to the Victory Villa elementary school playground near his home before, with his grandmother. This time, he got burned.

Vandals had broken into a storage area at the school some time early Saturday morning and opened bottles of industrial-strength drain cleaner, which contains high concentrations of toxic chemicals including sulfuric acid. The chemicals had been poured onto all of the playground equipment. When Peyton slid down the slide, he burned his legs, and landed in a puddle of the acid at the bottom of the slide.

His grandmother knew something was wrong when Peyton began screaming. He was taken by his mother to Franklin Square Hospital Center, where the emergency room needed to be evacuated. The family had unknowingly brought some of the toxic chemicals into the ER with them on their clothing.

Peyton was transferred to Johns Hopkins’ pediatric burn center to treat second- and third-degree burns. He underwent surgery yesterday to repair damage to his legs. His mother, Carol Duschi, told local television station WMAR-TV that her son will be in the hospital for several weeks.

Police sergeant Vickie Warehime told reporters that the criminals responsible will likely face charges of burglary, destruction of property, and first-degree assault. Warehime also said that the suspects would almost certainly have chemical burns of their own on their arms and hands.

A team of hazardous materials experts was called to the playground to clean up the toxic mess, declaring it safe after they doused the entire area with thousands of gallons of water.

For Peyton, from now on something as ubiquitous and harmless as a children’s playground, a veritable symbol for childhood innocence, will be anything but. As his mother asked local television reporters, "What kind of sick joke it that?"