Sometimes it’s better to let little kids do things on their own, as much as parents want to help them — or wait until the activity is age-appropriate for the child to do alone.

Heather Clare, a mom of three from Huntington, New York, found this out the hard way, sadly — and she is now sharing a frightening event that happened back in September of 2015, in a new Facebook post that has gone viral.

Clare related what happened when she took her twins, Meadow and Matthew, who were then one year old, to enjoy some time at the playground. She put Matthew on her lap and went down the slide just fine, without incident. But when she did the same with her daughter Meadow, the little girl’s foot got stuck between her mother and the side of the slide.

The one-year-old fractured the tibia and fibula in her right leg, and the tot spent the next four weeks in a cast, Clare told People. (See the below video for safety tips. See also the mom’s post further below, with sensitive material.)

Clare’s husband happened to snap a photo at the exact moment the injury occurred, and Heather Clare is now sharing the photo to warn other parents about the dangers of going down a slide with their children.

“This picture is the moment her leg was breaking. She’s still smiling … because it was happening at this exact moment,” Heather Clare said in her post, which quickly went viral. It’s now been shared over 87,000 times.

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Each year in the United States, emergency departments treat more than 200,000 children ages 14 and younger for playground-related injuries, the CDC reported in 2016. More than 20,000 of these children are treated for a traumatic brain injury (TBI) — including concussion.

“When we went to the ER, the super-empathetic doctor lectured me on how common this injury is. I had no idea. I thought everyone took their kids down the slide,” she continued.

“I share this picture every year in hopes that the pain Meadow felt and the guilt that I still feel will save other babies and parents from the same,” Clare said in her Facebook post. “Don’t ever go down a slide with a baby on your lap. There is no SAFE way to go down a slide with your little one.”

This piece was originally featured on LifeZette and is being used with permission. 

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