Articles Posted in Amusement Park Injury

A three-year-old girl died on July 1 in a bouncy castle incident in Norfolk, U.K.
She was bouncing on the inflatable equipment — a bouncy castle with a trampoline — when the trampoline exploded launching her “30 feet” in the air and causing her to land on the sand.

This tragedy comes just two months after two fairground workers were found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence for failing to properly secure a bouncy castle in Norwich, which killed a seven-year-old child.

According to the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP), there has been a vast increase in bounce house-related injuries in the last 20 years. Between 1990 and 2010, over 30 percent required medical follow up after initial treatment in the emergency department. The most common injuries were fractures and sprains.

In the U.S., the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that more than 64,000 children were treated in U.S. emergency departments for inflatable bounce house-related injuries between the years 1990 and 2010. From 2008 – 2010, the number of injuries more than doubled to an average of 31 injured children per day. More than a third of the children injured were under the age of six.

Our Florida Injury Attorneys at Whittel & Melton want your kids to remain safe at birthday parties, fairs, carnivals, festivals and all other celebrations. The following safety measures should be taken into consideration when your child is playing inflatable structures:

• Always supervise children in a bounce house. ALWAYS!
• Remove shoes, jewelry, and any hard or sharp objects from children’s pockets.
  Group children together according to size to help reduce risk of injury from collision.
  Do not allow children to perform stunts like flips or somersaults.
  Make sure children stay away from the exit points when bouncing inside.
• If the bounce house starts to deflate, exit promptly.
• If there are high winds, do not use the bounce house.

Bounce houses and other inflatables fall under premises liability, a legal concept that applies to situations where there is an unsafe or defective object on someone’s property. In order to establish liability in a bounce house injury, you must prove that the property owner was negligent and failed to provide reasonable care.

The main defense against bounce house claims is that they come with an assumption of risk. This basically means that while you may know that bounce houses are potentially dangerous, you still allowed your child to play in one anyway.

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A boy has fallen from a classic wooden roller coaster at a western Pennsylvania amusement park.

A spokesman for Idlewild and SoakZone amusement park says the child fell from the ride Thursday afternoon.

A Westmoreland County emergency dispatcher says the child was conscious and airlifted to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, about 50 miles west.

A park spokesman said he doesn’t know the boy’s condition or where he was on the ride when he fell. It is unknown whether the ride malfunctioned or if horseplay was involved.

The Roller Coaster opened in 1938 and takes riders up, down and around a wooded hillside. It doesn’t require seat belts, and children under 4 feet tall must be accompanied by an adult.

The accident comes four days after a 10-year-old boy was decapitated as he rode a water slide at a Kansas water park.

Roller coasters are enjoyed by children, adults and all thrill seekers, but what you may not know is that coasters are the most dangerous rides at an amusement or theme park. In recent years, more than 10,000 people have been treated in emergency rooms throughout the United States due to amusement park and roller coaster injuries. If a roller coaster accident, like a fall from the ride, was caused by negligence, an injury victim may be entitled to compensation from the owners of the park.

Roller coasters have various speeds, height, intensity, size, G-force, etc. Children are the most susceptible to injuries from a roller coaster mostly because of the amount of G-forces a body can tolerate at high speeds. All bodies react differently from intense G-forces, so where one person may walk away unscathed, another person could suffer back injuries, neck injuries, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, blood clots and wrongful death. Roller coaster seat belt systems can also cause injuries to riders depending on the differences in height, weight and size. Another issue, as this case highlights, is the risk of falling out of coasters from extreme heights.

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A 10-year-old boy was decapitated as he rode a 168-foot tall waterslide at a waterpark in Kansas Sunday.

The boy was decapitated on the “Verruckt” raft ride at the Schlitterbahn WaterPark in Kansas City, Kansas.

The boy was in a raft with two women who were not related to him when he was killed. The women were treated for facial injuries.

The Guinness World Records has certified the ride as the tallest in the world.

At least two people who recently rode on “Verruckt” — German for “insane” — have said the nylon shoulder straps came loose during the ride. It is not clear at this time if the straps played any role in the boy’s death.

The park said Tuesday that “Verruckt” will be closed for the rest of the season.

“Verruckt” riders sit in multi-person rafts that begin with a steep drop, followed by a surge up a second hill before a 50-foot descent to a finishing pool. Each “Verruckt” rider must be at least 54 inches tall, and the combined body weight of the riders on each raft is limited to 400 to 550 pounds.

Riders are harnessed in with two nylon seatbelt-like straps — one that crosses the rider’s lap, the other stretching diagonally like a car shoulder seat belt. Each strap is held in place by long Velcro-style straps. Riders also hang on to ropes inside the raft.

Schlitterbahn in Kansas City has been sued for negligence at least three times, all in 2014, although none of those legal actions involved the waterslide.

Water parks, for the most part, provide fun and entertainment to thousands of people a day. However, they are sometimes the scene of serious accidents, like slip, trip and falls and drownings. As this case shows, people can be injured or tragically killed at water parks.

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