NATION: “Bouncy house” blows away, carrying three children inside
Glens Falls NY: Two young boys were injured after an inflatable bounce house was swept away, apparently by a gust of wind, Monday afternoon.
Three children were on the play structure when the wind lifted the inflatable toy 50 feet into the air.
The three kids — ages 5, 6, and 10 — fell out of the toy as it reached heights of 15 to 20 feet. The two boys were seriously injured.
“The first thing I thought was that was my sister falling through the sky, because all I saw was arms and legs going,” said Taylor Seymour, whose 10-year-old sister was one of the children playing on the inflatable and suffered scrapes and a minor injury to her shoulder when she was tossed from the bounce house as it became airborne.
Parents say one boy was dropped onto a parked car and the other landed in the street.
“It dropped off the first little kid in the middle of the road, then it came the other way, it passed over my apartment, it dropped the second one, he hit his head on the back of my car and then he fell to the ground,” said Seymour.
South Glens Falls police are not releasing the victims’ names or conditions, but say the one boy who landed on pavement was conscious and talking at the scene.
The incident happened around 3:20 p.m. in front of a townhouse on Ferry Boulevard. Witnesses say the Little Tikes brand bounce house floated over a stretch of woods, reaching heights of 50 feet before and landing in the athletic fields behind Oliver W. Winch Middle School.
Police say the toy was secured to the ground with spikes, but the wind lifted it anyway.
“I actually watched the fellow that put it up and he staked it and he did everything correctly. All the kids were having fun until they screamed to me to come down and I saw that,” said Stephanie Hansen, who called 911.
The children are being treated at Albany Medical Center. According to witnesses, one suffered a serious head injury, the other, broken bones.
Witnesses and police say the man who owns the bounce house is not the father of the injured children.
Neighbors say the man who owns the bounce house feels horribly about what happened. His children were not playing on it at the time.
The photos of the airborne bounce house were captured by a South Glens Falls student as she got ready for a lacrosse game.