2 Children Suffer 'Burn-Like' Injuries After Acid Poured On Slides At US Playground

Two children suffered 'burn-like' injuries after playing at a Massachusetts playground. According to fire officials, the playground slides were doused with pool acid.

The incident took place at Bliss Park in Longmeadow on Sunday morning. The police and fire officials were called to the park for a report of a "suspicious substance" on the playground equipment, the fire department said in a news release.

At about the same time, firefighters and medical technicians were sent to a nearby home for a report of two children with burns who had just left the park.

"I let the kids go play. I did notice that there was liquid kind of collected at the bottom of the slide. I thought - I just assumed it was rainwater," Ashley Thielen, the mother of the two children who were injured, told CNN.

"And then my baby, who's one, just started crying... So that was when I kind of knew that this liquid that they were around was not water," she said.

The release said that the fire department found that the acidic material had been poured on three of the slides on the playground.

The officials learned that the pump room in the basement of the pool building had been broken into. Two fences had been climbed and a cover to a ventilation shaft was torn off. The perpetrators entered the room through the ventilation shaft. In this room is where the chemicals used to operate the pool are stored.

The hazmat team said that one of these chemicals was poured on the slides. "This chemical was determined to be muriatic acid. The Mass State Police crime lab gathered several items of evidence. Additional evidence was gathered and has been sent to the crime lab for forensic analysis and fingerprinting," the release said.

The fire department said, "We suspect that the perpetrators may have suffered acid burns to their hands or arms and their clothing may have indications of being degraded from contact with the acid."

An investigation is currently underway and the playground has been professionally cleaned.