KEY POINTS:
Matting around a West Auckland playground has been stripped after it was confirmed the substance that burned an 11-month-old's trousers there was sulphuric acid.
Tamsin Lockley and Kana Border's son Dante had a hole burned in his jeans around the knees when he came into contact with a clear liquid while crawling on rubber matting at the Harold Moody Reserve in Glen Eden on November 15.
His injuries were limited to a minor irritation on one knee but it distressed his parents so Waitakere City Council closed the playground.
Council spokesman Dai Bindoff said the AgResearch testing laboratory's analysis of the boy's clothes confirmed it was sulphuric acid, the acid used in car batteries.
Mr Bindoff said there was a chance the boy's clothes came into contact with the acid somewhere else but the matting was being removed as a precaution.
"The child's parents reported seeing a clear liquid on the matting, so we are being extra cautious," he said.
"If the acid was in the park, we must hope that it got there accidentally.
"There have been no similar reports from other parks, so we believe this was just a one-off incident."
Mr Bindoff said the findings were reported to police.
"The playground is close to the carpark and it is possible that somebody was swapping batteries in a car and put one of them down on the matting for some reason. But we just don't know."
Ms Lockley and Mr Border didn't notice the hole in Dante's jeans until she got home from the park.
"I thought it looked a bit strange because it didn't look like it had ripped, it was like a hole had just appeared," she said.
"I took them off and about one hour later there was suddenly a huge patch on both knees, almost like something had eaten it away."
She said after the incident that she felt she could no longer take Dante to the park.
"What if it had been worse? He could have had the stuff on his hands and put them in his mouth. I can't bear to think what else could have happened."
- NZPA
