Boy in Coma After Bounce House Takes Flight

Another boy suffered multiple broken bones
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 14, 2014 6:18 PM CDT
Boy Remains in Coma as Bounce House Flies Away
This photo provided by the South Glens Fall Police Department shows the deflated bounce house.   (AP Photo/South Glens Fall Police Department)

One boy remains in a medically induced coma with head trauma and another is recovering from multiple broken bones after the bounce house they were playing in took flight on a strong gust of wind, reports the Glens Falls Post-Star in upstate New York. It happened Monday afternoon, when the boys, ages 5 and 6, were swept away while inside the inflatable house. They fell from a distance of least 15 feet, with the boy who's in a coma landing on a parked car and the other boy landing on a street. A 10-year-old girl fell out soon after the house went up and suffered only minor scrapes.

"It was nothing that anyone did wrong," one woman at the scene tells CNN. "I saw the house being put up. I saw him putting all the stakes in. The parent, he just broke down. It was the saddest thing, he was blaming himself. He did everything right, it was just a freak thing." The children of the man who owns the tent and erected it aren't among the injured. Police are calling it a "tragic accident" and don't expect to file charges. The bounce house kept going and going after the kids fell out, rising to an estimated 50 feet before coming down near a school. (A student snapped photos of it mid-flight.) This isn't the first time kids have been injured in flyaway bounce houses: see here and here. (More bounce house stories.)

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