Playtime just won’t be the same for some

Greg Risling

COSTA MESA -- Debra Wilder has some apprehension about going on a

playground where she saw her students lying injured and dead in May.

Since Thursday’s approval by a state licensing board to allow children

to run free on the new playground at the Southcoast Early Childhood

Learning Center, Wilder has spent only 15 minutes in the play area.

Standing at the right angle, she has horrendous flashbacks: pulling a

swing set off of one student while she stabilized the body of another,

remembering the exact positioning of every child’s body.

She sees the faces of two children -- 3-year-old Brandon Wiener and

4-year-old Sierra Soto -- and blames herself for not helping them. She

remembers staring into the eyes of the man who caused all the madness and

asking him for help. He sternly replied “No” and closed his eyes, Wilder

said.

“I remember a lot from that day,” she said. “I feel that I failed to

protect those children. I know there wasn’t anything I could do but I

carry that feeling with me every day.”

There were mixed emotions when the children were allowed to return to

the playground where tragedy struck several months ago. When 39-year-old

Steven Allen Abrams of Santa Ana barreled his Cadillac -- allegedly on

purpose -- onto the playground, he irrevocably changed the lives of

everyone involved.

Day-care center director Sheryl Hawkinson is happy to see the kids

back in their environment but has taken the week off from work. In some

strange way, having the children playing at the very site where the

tragedy took place is almost like forgetting what happened there.

“I know the children are having fun, but it’s hard to go out there,”

she said. “My heart has been damaged forever but this is another step to

some kind of normalcy.”

The playground was silenced for the summer, devoid of the playful

clamor while construction crews built a new wall and replaced damaged

equipment. The last sounds heard on the playground were of agony and

pain.

On Tuesday, four days after the gate was open to the playground, the

tone reverted back to the usual noise: a plastic ball bouncing against a

wall, two friends fighting for a space on the slide, girls giggling in

unison.

The kids still ask questions.

“Why was the sandbox moved?” they wonder.

“Why are there bars on the wall?” they question.

“The children are so awesome, they take things so literally,”

Hawkinson said. “This place was built with love. It’s very special to

us.”

For Hawkinson and her staff, the trauma hasn’t subsided. Many of the

teachers have undergone counseling, including Wilder, who taught there

two years. She doesn’t know when she can join the kids on the playground.

But the smiles and laughs that have replaced the tears and cries have

been comforting.

“When I’m ready I will definitely go out there,” she said. “We’re

definitely happy the kids are back on the playground.”