Bounce house injuries rise, could be considered an 'epidemic'
Thinkstock


Emergency room doctors have been treating children with injuries sustained in bounce houses for years now, but visits are becoming more frequent, Time reports.
Several incidents have made national headlines recently: In May, two children in New York were blown 15 feet in the air before tumbling out of a bounce house; one of the kindergartners remains hospitalized. A similar incident took place in Colorado over the weekend, with two children being blown across a field after the bounce house they were playing in was picked up by a gust of wind.
Annually, 11,000 injuries from bounce houses are reported. "If this were a disease, it would be considered an epidemic," says Tracy Mehan, a health educator with the Child Injury Prevention Alliance. A 2012 study in Pediatrics found that there was a 15-fold increase in bounce house injuries from 1995 to 2010, at which point an average of 31 children were seeking treatment at an ER each day. The average patient was 7 and had either fractured or sprained an arm or leg, usually by falling into another child inside the inflatable funhouse.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Experts say injuries are on the rise for a number of reasons, including the fact that bounce houses are sold in stores, giving more people access to what was once a relatively hard-to-find product. Most states do not have strict guidelines for bounce house use, Time reports, so the Child Injury Prevention Alliance suggests that only children over the age of 6 be allowed inside bounce houses, with only one jumper in at a time.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
July 6 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include paying for school lunch by enlisting, and the banality of evil
-
5 biting editorial cartoons about 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Cartoons Artists take on dangerous green things, historical precedent, and more
-
A journey into the deep past on beautiful Arran
The Week Recommends New Unesco Global Geopark played a 'key role' in the birth of modern geological science
-
Kennedy's vaccine panel signals skepticism, change
Speed Read RFK Jr.'s new vaccine advisory board intends to make changes to the decades-old US immunization system
-
Kennedy ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory panel
speed read Health Secretary RFK Jr. is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has criticized the panel of experts
-
RFK Jr. scraps Covid shots for pregnant women, kids
Speed Read The Health Secretary announced a policy change without informing CDC officials
-
New FDA chiefs limit Covid-19 shots to elderly, sick
speed read The FDA set stricter approval standards for booster shots
-
US overdose deaths plunged 27% last year
speed read Drug overdose still 'remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44,' said the CDC
-
Trump seeks to cut drug prices via executive order
speed read The president's order tells pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug prices, but it will likely be thrown out by the courts
-
RFK Jr. visits Texas as 2nd child dies from measles
Speed Read An outbreak of the vaccine-preventable disease continues to grow following a decade of no recorded US measles deaths
-
Shingles vaccine cuts dementia risk, study finds
Speed Read Getting vaccinated appears to significantly reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia