Sarah Goodman was saying goodbye to her friends at a recent wedding reception, when she heard "a commotion" from the next room.
"I thought, "˜Whose yelling at my son?'" she remembered, and found him next to a toppled statue laying on the ground.
Soon, Goodman says someone was following her around and demanding her personal information.
The bizarre situation lead to Goodman getting a $132,000 bill in the mail, and kickstarted an intense debate about parenting.
"My children are well supervised but all people get distracted"
The dramatic statue toppling took place at the Tomahawk Ridge Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas.
Goodman said she asked someone else to mind her 5-year-old son while she spoke to friends in the next room.
During that time, security camera footage show the tyke hugging and hanging on to the statue before it collapsed to the ground.
Angry community center staff took down Goodman's address, and she later received a bill from the city of Overland Park for $132,000.
"You're responsible for the supervision of a minor child," the letter said. "Your failure to monitor could be considered negligent."
But Goodman insists her son was "well supervised," it's just that "all people get distracted."
Two sides to every story
Goodman has her own complaint about the statue incident, that her son could have been seriously injured but no one seems to care.
"He's honestly been having bad dreams every night," she said.
"None of these people have ever once said, "˜How is Troy? How is your son holding up? Is his face okay?'"
Bill Lyons, the artist who built the statue named "Aphrodite di Kansas City," says the $132,000 work of art is broken beyond repair.
"I don't want to diminish the value of their art," Goodman told the Kansas City Star. "But I can't pay for that."
She says that if the art was so valuable, it should have been behind a barrier, or at least a rope.
"There was no border around it," she said. "There wasn't even a sign around it that said, "˜Do not touch.'"
The city admits the statue was not "permanently attached," just secured with clips, but they say they've never faced problems with children climbing works of art before.
Parents taking sides
Not many people would like to be in Goodman's shoes right now, but plenty of parents are defending her.
They say that the city did not take steps to protect the statue, and can't expect the Goodmans to pay for it.
"No one would ever to expect that to come into a place that kids are invited and have to worry about a $132,000 dollar piece of art falling on their child," Goodman insists.
"Because he didn't maliciously break that. It fell on him. It was not secure, it was not safe -- at all."
For now, it seems like Overland Park is forced to agree. They now say they "are NOT seeking payment from the family."
"Our [insurance] carrier is simply wanting to contact their insurance provider. If we do not seek payment from their carrier, taxpayers' money will be used to compensate the artist."
Goodman plans to see if her homeowner's insurance will cover the "astronomically high" price for the ruined statue.
Should the Goodmans be forced to foot the bill? Or is the city to blame?
