It was supposed to be a fun day out, but four-year-old Danny Beard was left nursing a black eye and cuts and grazes to his face after he was flung from a toboggan.

The youngster was riding on the sledge with his dad at the Chatham Ski and Snowboard Centre when the accident happened just after 4pm on Thursday.

His mum Christine, from Longfield, says she wants to make other families aware of the dangers of the sport.

She has also contacted Medway Council’s health and safety department asking them to carry out a review of the ski centre’s safety checks.

Ski centre bosses said the Cresta Run ride had been open for a decade with the number of accidents in that time minimal. Safety checks are carried out on a daily basis.

Describing the incident, Mrs Beard said: “Danny was on the toboggan with my husband Clive when half way down it seemed to lose control. It was going at some speed.

“Clive pulled on the brakes as it started to lose control but it didn’t react.

Petrified

“It went up one side, threw them to the other side and Danny hit his face on the steel runway.

“He had blood pouring from his nose and his left ear, which had a gash at the top – he was petrified.

“They [staff at the ski centre] got us down and got a first aider for us but we were so worried we took Danny straight to hospital, where they gave him medicine for the pain and did a face X-ray.

“Luckily, nothing was broken.

“I just want people to be aware of what can happen. My husband is gutted that Danny was so badly injured. He was lucky his ear wasn’t ripped off because of the force.

Andy Rushton, Ski Centre manager, said: “I was the operator of the ride during the incident. I gave a full safety brief to every participant and tested the car after the incident.

“We’ve had up to one million rides on the Cresta Run and we’ve been operating for 10 years.

“The number of incidents we get per number of rides is extremely small. Safety checks are carried out on individual cars everyday.”