A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl was left needing an operation after breaking her arm and wrist when she fell off a zip wire slide at Newport’s Tredegar Park.

Lauren Evans, of Hawksworth Grove, Newport, was playing on the zip slide when her father Gareth said she fell six feet onto the ground after she was thrown from it.

After breaking her wrist and arm, the youngster had to undergo a two-hour operation at the city’s Royal Gwent Hospital where she had two special wires inserted into her right arm.

Mr Evans has now reported the incident and said he feels the safety needs to be improved to prevent a similar incident happening to anyone else.

Lauren had been at the park on Friday afternoon with Mr Evans, her mum Ceri and her three-year-old sister Mylee.

Mr Evans said she went on the zip slide but as she came to the end, a special spring to stop the zip wire mechanism forced Lauren’s legs to go up near her hands and she lost her grip.

This resulted in her falling around 6ft onto the mud ground below.

Mr Evans said there was no staff around and so he ended up taking Lauren to hospital himself where she underwent the operation on Saturday. She returned home on Sunday afternoon.

She will now have to go back to the hospital weekly to have x-rays until doctors are happy to remove the wires but Mr Evans said this could take months.

He said: “She was in so much pain. It’s spoilt her summer holidays and she does karate so will miss out on competitions with that now as well.”

He added: “It was lucky I was there. Kids could be going on there without any adults around. I just don’t think it’s safe.”

Mr Evans said he had been contacted by a manager at the council’s park team who had told him the zip slide met health and safety regulations.

A Newport council spokeswoman said: “The council is very sorry to hear about this accident and send our best wishes for a speedy recovery. We are not aware of any similar accidents relating to this equipment and we are looking into the incident.”