Jumping castle accident injures kids July 22 2013 at 10:41am By ALEX MITCHLEY Comment on this story Pretoria - A Sunday afternoon visit to a popular Fountains Valley restaurant turned into a nightmare when the jumping castle “shot up into the air like a hot air balloon”.  One of the children catapulted from the castle cracked his pelvis and at least two others were injured. Hennie Coetzee, his wife Ester, and their four-year-old son, who they don’t want named, were at Moyo last Sunday for lunch. Pretoria News Their son and a few other children had been playing on the jumping castle. The jumping castle has now been bolted down at Moyo restaurant at Fountains Valley resort. Picture: Alex Michley “All of a sudden this play castle just jumped into the air and it just took off. “I jumped up because I saw my kid on it a moment before, as I jumped up I saw three kids fall off, but I didn’t see my child, I didn’t see him anywhere,” said Coetzee. Coetzee said he saw another little boy fall flat on his face. “It went straight up like a hot air balloon. I didn’t think it was possible. When it hit the ground we were running like crazy to see if my child had fallen,” said Coetzee. His wife said it happened so fast: “I saw the first three children just drop, drop ,drop. It’s a terrible thing to witness your child flying up in the air and you can’t catch him because you’re not fast enough.” Their son was found by another diner, Debbie McIntosh, and they immediately took him to Unitas Hospital. He was diagnosed with a cracked pelvis and suffered various scrapes and bruises. Ester said they were relieved when the extensive tests and scans showed that none of his organs had raptured or were punctured. Isobel Fowler, the spokeswoman for Unitas Hospital, confirmed that the child was treated in the paediatric ICU unit and later discharged. The Coetzees said their son was discharged on Wednesday. “He still complains in the mornings that it is sore and that he is having bad dreams,” said Ester on Sunday at their Waterkloof Ridge home. “He has only just started playing again; before he just lay down. What is very bad for me is when he whimpers in his sleep.” McIntosh said it was a traumatic experience for all who witnessed it. “We were at our table when I heard screams. I saw that the jumping castle had take to the sky,” she described on Sunday. She said she saw a child land in bushes mere centimetres away from a wall. “I immediately got up to see if he was alright, there was a lot of blood in his mouth but no other visible injuries,” she said. According to McIntosh the jumping castle rose above the trees and was “extremely” high. Rian Esterhuyzen, the general manager of Moyo Fountains Valley, said it was a freak accident. The company that had put up the castle said it had been working with these types of apparatus for 12 years and had never encountered anything like it. “It wasn’t tied down, but it weighs over 40kg so it must have been one hell of a wind to pick it up,” said Esterhuyzen. He explained that the company said it did not use pegs to tie down the jumping castle as they could be a danger to children who were playing around the castle. The castle was back up on Sunday when the Pretoria News visited and Esterhuyzen said it had been secured with umbrella bases. Immediately after the incident, Esterhuyzen said, he had tried to find the parents of the children involved, but was only able to track down one family, and the child was okay. “I went to check on the others at Unitas but I couldn’t get information as I wasn’t a parent.” According to the general manager, three children were injured. “We are very sorry to the injured parties. They must come back and we will make it up to them,” said Esterhuyzen. After the family’s ordeal, Ester said she had watched several YouTube videos of similar occurrences with jumping castles. “It happens; it is something that people should look at and be aware of,” she said. From what she had read, there are people in the United Kingdom who wanted to have jumping castles banned, Ester said. The Coetzees said they were considering taking legal action and had been receiving legal advice, but for the time being they were trying to cope and get over the trauma they had been feeling since the incident.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 06:31:22 +0000