A 13-year-old Ottawa boy is celebrating his survival after crushing two vertebrae when he fell 30 feet from a tree and hit a fence over the weekend.
"It's very dangerous and I guarantee I'm not going to do it again," Christian Leblond told CTV Ottawa on Wednesday.
Leblond fell after a branch broke while he was climbing a tree in a southeast Ottawa park Saturday evening.
The boy and his friend had climbed trees before, but this time Leblond decided to try to climb to the top.
"I was holding on to two branches and then they both broke on me and then I fell straight down and landed on my butt and like my whole back just spent back and broke," he said.
Fourteen-year-old Mahdi Abdul Hussein was with Lalonde when he fell.
"I went up there before and then I came back down - it was dangerous. He went for it and then it just broke with him because he was jumping and stuff. The first branch broke and then he let go and the whole tree came down with him," said Hussein.
Leblond will now spend the next few weeks in a body cast and has a message for other kids this summer: "If there's any kids who want to climb a tree or try to, it's not a joke at all. I could have been severely broken."
A spokesperson for Plan it Safe, a program run by the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, agrees.
Corrine Langill says CHEO wants kids to be active and enjoy climbing trees, but also reminds them to think about the possible risks involved.
Her advice for children: "Look first and check out their environment, that the branch is strong enough and maybe going by their own gut."
She says if kids are starting to feel a bit nervous, they should slow down or turn back.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr
Do you have tips to keep your kids safe this summer? Have your say by leaving a comment below.
