Skateboarding and rollerblading are fun and healthy sports for kids and teens that need some exercise and sunshine. Unfortunately, as with most athletics, skateboarding comes at a cost. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says that more than 15,600 people need hospital treatment for a skateboarding injury annually. Almost half of these accidents occur because the boarder was riding on an irregular surface. Many times a rock or a pothole can throw the board off balance and injure the rider. Most often, these boarders suffered wrist injuries, like fractures or breaks. Almost one-third of injured boarders each year had just started skateboarding when the injury occurred.

Skating accidents can be expensive. A 2007 research project by the UC Irvine Medical Center found that the average cost for each skate park injury is around $3,200. This amount is the cumulative of two-thirds medical and one-third lost wages. The older a person is, the higher the cost in most cases, because of added lost wages. For adults over 25 skate park injuries normally end in at least 17 days off work. Some patients can even lose their jobs due to injuries. When children sustained a skate park injury, it sometimes still cost lost wages, since the child needed a parent to take off work and stay home as a care-taker.

"Injury", an international scholarly medical journal, found that when a skate park opened up near a city hospital, the amount of patients with skating related injuries skyrocketed. The amount of skate park related visits went from 7 to 32 in a matter of days after the new park opened. While most skate park injuries are minor, every once and a while a serious disaster occurs. Skaters are supposed to wear protective pads such as knee pads, wrist and elbow guards, elbow pads and helmets, but some teens refuse to obey these precautions.

If you or someone you know was injured at a skate park, you may be able to sue the park through a personal injury case. Most commonly, prosecutors sue skate parks for a failure to supervise the premises or for negligent design and construction. Lawsuits can also be filed if the park staff fails to maintain the equipment. As one personal injury lawyer points out, skate parks are built to challenge skaters and always come with a risk. Because of this, most skate parks will post disclaimers on signs on the property, warning the skaters of the potential risks of the park. Normally, a lawsuit cannot be filed without a specific targeted weakness. For example, if a grinding bar at a park was severed, and a skater fell and suffered a deep laceration from the broken bar, that is grounds for a lawsuit. If a roller blader simply fails to do a trick correctly and falls, spraining an ankle or breaking a leg, chances are that there is no grounds for a lawsuit. This is because all skaters are "at their own risk" in the park.

Skate parks are often protected from certain lawsuits in the state code. For example, in Utah a person cannot make any claim against a county or municipality for personal injury due to recreational activity. Since most skate parks are a community establishment, this means that boarders are limited in suing for a skate park accident. In California, public entities are immune from lawsuit if they adopt the ordinance requiring all people to wear pads and helmets while in the park. This claim only applies to people fourteen or older, and only when the park is not regularly supervised. The weight of your claim will rest in the extremity of the injury and amount of money in question. You will want the help of a personal injury lawyer to determine whether or not you have a case and can pursue a claim.