Two little boys ages two and three-years-old were injured (one critically) in Nashua, New Hampshire on Sunday after a bouncy house they were playing in went airborne. The accident happened at Sullivan Farm Greenhouse and Orchard, where Farmer Gary Bergeron had purchased the bouncy house for a fundraiser, but it was not intended to be in use at the time. The house had been kept in a restricted area and was not properly tethered down as it was drying out after a recent rainstorm.
Unfortunately there are few forces in this universe that can keep a child away from a bouncy house, properly tethered or not. CBS Boston reports:
“I saw the bouncy house fly into the air as high as the building behind me and as soon as it went up it flipped and came crashing down,” she said. “It’s just a freak very, very sad incident that happened.”
Nashua fire officials say the structure sailed 50-60 feet before crashing to the ground, trapping the youngsters inside. Their parents were able to rescue them.
According to the Huffington Post, one expert estimates that there are “11,000 bouncy house injuries per year in the United States,” which is a sentence I thought I would never have to type.
“If this were a disease, it would be considered an epidemic,” Tracy Mehan, a health educator with the Child Injury Prevention Alliance, told Time magazine.
Everyone is all worried about this “ebola” business, but the real scourge of mankind thinning out the gene pool has been under our noses all along. I consulted with UPROXX Managing Editor and haver of young boys, Kris Maske, who stated on the subject: “I’m conflicted because of how awesome those things are at wearing out kids in a contained space.” So . . . I don’t have kids but sounds to me like it’s 100% worth the risk.
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(CBS Boston via Huffington Post)