Family makes scary discovery at Bellevue Park duck pond (3 photos)

A young Sault woman was both outraged and horrified Thursday to find sharp pieces of broken glass, stuck jagged-edges-up at the edge of the Bellevue Park duck ponds.

Chelsea Van Hoof tells SooToday she was at the park between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. with her husband and three-year-old daughter to do what they often do together: feed the ducks.

The family parked near the waterfront and walked to their preferred duck-feeding spot between two footbridges, carrying a bag of TSC bird feed.

Their daughter jumped up and frightened the ducks.

It was after that that Van Hoof saw a bright glint of light on the surface of the water.

"Is that glass?" she asked herself. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

It was glass, indeed, all placed carefully in the sand near the pond's edge.

"It was poking out of the water, as if someone placed it there."

Horrified, she emptied the TSC bag, collected the fragments into it and took them to a nearby garbage receptacle.

Van Hoof said she called City Hall, and was told someone would be there quickly to remove any remaining fragments and to check the surrounding area of the park for any other hazards.

"I was happy with the response I got," she said. "I thought I was just going to get an e-mail."

Van Hoof described the glass as containing wire mesh, like that used in schools and other institutions, or elevator doors.

There's no glass like that around Bellevue Park.

"Someone brought that glass out here," she deduced.

"It is disheartening to see that in our community, in a place where children go."

"When you go to a park, you don't expect to encounter these things."

Interestingly, another young woman reported finding glass shards in the same place, three years ago.

Madison Launchbury remembers the date well.

It was July 7, 2016.

She was very much pregnant at the time and was walking in Bellevue Park in an attempt to induce labour.

Her baby didn't arrive until four days later, but Launchbury got her share of excitement anyway.

In her case, the glass shards weren't so much stuck jagged-edge up as they were just lying flat at the edge of the pond.

She too, tells SooToday that there was wire mesh in the glass removed that day.

Launchbury says she told an employee at the park's food concession stand and was assured it would be cleaned up.