2 boys injured after 'bounce house' flies 50 feet into air

FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2005 file photo, children play in a bounce house in Vidor, Texas. / AP

Two boys, ages 5 and 6, in upstate New York were seriously injured Monday after an inflatable bounce house went airborne, according to police.

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The house reached heights of between 15 and 20 feet, the South Glens Falls Police Department said in a statement.

One boy was dropped onto a parked car and the other landed in the street. A 10-year-old girl was also tossed from the bounce house and suffered minor injuries, reports WNYT-TV in Albany.

Witnesses said the house had been staked to the ground, according to the police report.

This is not the first time children have been injured from these toys becoming unmoored and blowing away.

At least 10 inflatables around the country in 2011 have been toppled by winds or collapsed under too much weight, injuring more than 40 people, according to www.rideccidents.com, a website that tracks amusement ride accidents.

One incident in New York that year left 13 in the hospital, according to the Associated Press. In Arizona, two accidents in the Tucson area in 2011 injured four children, including sisters who were inside a bounce house in February when wind bursts tossed the ride onto a roof. In April, a boy and a girl were in bounce houses that were blown across three lanes of traffic, the AP reported.

A Consumer Product Safety Commission report released in 2005 linked the growing popularity of inflatables with an increasing number of injuries treated at hospital emergency rooms from 1997 to 2004.

The agency found there were an estimated 1,300 injuries in 1997 and 4,900 injuries in 2004.

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Read the original story: 2 boys injured after 'bounce house' flies 20 feet into air

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