Dei uma de alemão...

...só que escrevi a carta em inglês, devido ao meu alemão precário.

Bonn, 15th September 2010

IKEA Deutschland
Niederlassung Köln-Godorf
Godorfer Hauptstr. 171
50997 Köln

To Einrichtungshaus-
chef Köln-Godorf

Dear Mr. Kräuter,

Last Saturday, my family visited IKEA and my 5 year old daughter stayed at the Smaland (Spielplatz) while my husband and I went shopping. About an hour later, we returned to pick her up and she showed us an injury on her left knee which was covered with an Ikea Pflaster. She told us that the wound was made while playing at the ball pool. Later that day we were able to see that the wound was perfectly round with the size of a 5 cent euro coin.

On Sunday, she woke up feeling pain and unable to put her left leg on the floor. The wound was with a strange aspect and the area around it was completely red. That same afternoon she started to have high fever. We took her to the pediatrician who said the injury was highly infected and that she needed to go through a treatment with the disinfection of the area twice a day  as well as take antiobiotics for 7 days to avoid the spread of the infection. For this whole week, she cannot attend Kindergarten and her regular activities, demanding constant attention and care at home, what makes her really sad and bored.

The speed in which the problem evolved took us by surprise and  worry. We do not intend do take any legal actions against IKEA, but if this happens to somebody else, they  may want to do so. Therefore, we would like to recommend you the following:

1.     Look into the ball pool to see what might have caused the injury to my daughter´s knee (it seems to me that it was the head of a screw).

2.     Do the maintenance of the toys regularly.

3.     Prepare the staff/caretakers to give first aid. I am sure that my daughter´s wound had not been properly cleaned and that the hands of the person who attended my daughter were not either, due to the speed that the infection evolved.

4.     Ask the staff of the Spielplatz to immediately call the parents in case of injury. They are not prepared to decide if  an injury is minor or not. The parents are the ones that have to decide if the child can continue playing or not.

Yours sincerely,

Familie Soffiatti