One child was killed and another was injured after a wind gust blew a bounce house into the air at a baseball game in Maryland on Friday night, local officials said.
Local emergency personnel received a call in Waldorf, Maryland, at about 9:21 p.m. Friday from the Regency Furniture Stadium reporting that a moon bounce house became airborne because of a wind gust while children were inside.
At the time, the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs minor league baseball team was playing a game, and “the moon bounce was carried approximately 15 to 20 feet up in the air, causing children to fall before it landed on the playing field,” according to a news release from the Charles County government posted on its website.
A 5-year-old boy from La Plata, Maryland, was flown to Children’s National Hospital in Washington, where he was later pronounced dead, the release said. A second child also was flown out by Maryland State Police with non-life-threatening injuries.
Do folks not anchor these‽ this is so freakin’ sad.
I recently saw one which had foot-long stakes driven at an angle. I wonder if that would be secure enough. I didn’t consider wind as a major threat at the time.
It also had a big pocket on the front that said in big letters that it just always contain the manual — empty, obviously.
They often have mesh (not bouncy) sides, and even landing from 20’ on your neck on the inflated surface seems like it could be deadly. How awful.
