I remember when I was in junior high, not middle school as it is called today, a fad that swept the nation was in-ground trampolines, where you paid the proprietor for several minutes of jump time. I recall trying it a number of times with my buddies, but the fad and the businesses didn”t seem to last long.
It did make some sense to dig holes in the ground and stretch the trampolines over the hole at ground-level, instead of trampolines that were three or four feet off the ground. But as I recall, there were no spotters or retaining measures in place. A poorly executed somersault could land you on the hard ground and easily cause injury, especially broken bones. I”m sure the orthopedic surgeons profited by an influx of business.
I would imagine that the insurance claims and lawsuits were the primary reasons the trampoline shops disappeared almost as suddenly as they sprang out of the holes in the ground. For some reason kids love to jump, though, and all these years later we now have what we refer to as bounce houses, jump houses or moonwalks. They tend to be more for the younger kids, but I”ve seen some older individuals in them, too.
The business model these days is for owners of the inflatable attractions to rent them out for school fairs, birthday parties, company picnics and a variety of other events. I have noticed in the calendar of events that we run in the newspaper every day that they are quite popular at many summer social gatherings.
Generally speaking, the bounce houses seem to be relatively safe places for kids to have some fun and actually get some exercise. So, I don”t want to frighten parents away from allowing their youngsters to enjoy them, but I do want to call attention to the fact that even though they appear to be designed with the safety of the user in mind, there can be danger involved. This has been borne out by a considerable number of newspaper stories reporting on accidents and tragedies involving the inflatable fun houses.
Many of the problems are caused due to the fact that most of the time these attractions are set up and monitored by people who are not really trained and aware of the dangers. Often, a youngster is placed in front to watch over the children who are inside the jump house. Some of the injuries have come from the fact that young children are allowed to mix with older, bigger kids. The larger kids get too rambunctious and wind up landing on the small children. Too many users at one time also cause kids to bang into each other and create injuries.
In 2007, two adults and a 3-year-old were involved in a bounce house accident in Washington. The adults, who should never have been inside with a child so young, landed on the boy and he died of a head injury. Other injuries have been caused when the bounce house wasn”t properly tethered to the ground. They can tip over from too much weight on one side. At one picnic, when a gusty wind came from nowhere, an untied bounce house was actually picked up and blown several hundred feet with kids inside.
Scary situations have occurred when the power went off or the power cord was inadvertently unplugged. A large bounce house can consist of 500 to 600 pounds of plastic or canvass and when the power goes off it starts to deflate and kids become trapped inside all of that heavy material.
My advice to parents, especially of young children, is to just be alert when you allow your child to go inside a bounce house with other jumping and screaming youngsters. Make sure no big kids or adults are inside at the same time and make sure the unit is tied down so that it will not tip over. You want your kids to have fun, but you also want them to be safe. And, like David Lee Roth sang in the Van Halen classic, “Might as well jump.”
Gary Dickson is the editor and publisher of the Record-Bee. He can be reached at gdickson@record-bee.com or 263-5636, ext. 24.
