Playground Hero Devony Templet Jumped Off A Swing And Broke Her Arms While Trying To Avoid A Collision With A Toddler

For at least the next four weeks, Devony Templet will not be able to tie, zip or button her clothes. If she wants to put her shoulder-length hair in a ponytail, she’ll have to ask her mom for help. She’ll have to miss volleyball camp, basketball camp and fishing with her dad in Portland.

But if she could go back a few weeks and redo the events that led to her arms being in casts - one lime green, the other tangerine - the 10-year-old said she’d probably do things just the same way.

On June 7, Devony and her Ridgeview Elementary School classmates took a field trip to Shadle Park. On the agenda was lunch at McDonald’s, play time in the park and a visit to the Shadle Branch library.

Devony said she was swinging with her friends when a boy about 2 or 3 years old wandered in front of her swing. As the swing neared him, she dug her heels into the ground, flipped backward and landed on her arms. Though they hurt, she didn’t realize the seriousness of what had happened.

Neither, apparently, did the small boy.

“He just smiled at me and ran off,” Devony said.

Teachers helped Devony stand up, but when she tried to lift her arms, she couldn’t. That’s when she knew something was really wrong.

She told her teachers she needed to go back to school, and they called her mom, Dayle Templet.

When she got the call, Dayle rushed to Devony and then hurried her to the doctor. X-rays showed Devony had breaks in both arms, in exactly the same place on each.

“I was horrified,” Dayle said. But when she heard Devony was trying to avoid hitting the boy, she called her daughter’s actions fantastic.

Devony said she’d do it all again.

“I’d just put my feet down sooner,” she said, because that would have kept her from flipping backward.

For the Templets, it will be a summer to remember.

Sighed Dayle: “Without a doubt.”