Kana Border with son Dante. They won't be returning to the playground. Photo / Chris Gorman
The parents of a toddler playing in their local park were horrified when an acid-like substance started eating away at their son's clothing.
Tamsin Lockley, 19, says 11-month-old Dante was crawling on the rubber matting of the Harold Moody Reserve in Glen Eden when he came into contact
with a clear liquid - possibly acid - making a hole in his jeans.
It was Dante's first trip to a playground.
"It wasn't until we got home that I noticed a hole in the knee of his jeans," says Lockley. "I thought it looked a bit strange because it didn't look like it had ripped, it was like a hole had just appeared.
"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."
Lockley and her husband, Kana Border, 19, took the jeans to the Waitakere City Council, which sealed off the play equipment and hosed it down.
A sample of Dante's jeans is being tested, and a security guard has been posted to keep children off the area.
Lockley says Dante was not injured but had been "acting out" since the incident, possibly in shock.
"He's not hurt, but his knees were red and burning for a while," she says. "He hasn't been sleeping well and has been acting really hyper - it's just a bit off."
Waitakere City Council spokesman, Dai Bindoff, says the council expects to have the clothes back from the lab within the next week.
"Whatever it was has attacked the boy's clothing but not the rubber matting of the play area, so I have no idea whether it's something acidic," he says.
Groups of teenagers are known to hang around the park at night, but Bindoff says it is too early to speculate as to who placed the substance there.
Dante's parents say they won't be taking their son back to the playground.
"I can't take my kid to the park - it's sad," Tamsin Lockley says. "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."
