Area Toddler Put Down After Tragic Recess Injury.....

Beaver Dam, KY-Despite the best efforts of the teachers and custodians at Beaver Dam's Children First Preschool, local 3-year-old Timmy Dean was put down today following a tragic double ankle sprain.

"Injuries like this are pretty unusual during morning playtime activities," Donna Krebs, an assistant teacher at Children First, explained. "We haven't had to break out the sodium pentobarbital in weeks."

As news of the toddler's euthanasia is spreading around the tightknit community of just over 3,000, the townspeople have begun to voice their concerns. Tip Armstrong, a veteran bagger at the nearby Food Cow Mini Market, questions whether injuries like this are really as isolated as official records show. "It's that damn playground surface. Ain't no young kids should be running around on asphalt in this day and age. Those little ankles snap like Chinese toothpicks!"

Mayor Tom Chesterton is placing blame on local parents, who for years have been breeding toddlers for speed and thin bones, which has resulted in a steady increase in both sprains and strains. "Every year it seems like these youngins are getting skinnier and more fragile, and somebody ought to do something about it."

Timmy Dean's mother, also an assistant teacher at Children First, has come to terms with the loss of her son. "Sure I miss my boy, but I don't see how we had any choice. Toddlers live for running around and gettin into things, and a sprain like that'd take weeks to heal."