Children were inside the play structure at a baseball game when it was carried 15 to 20 feet in air the by the wind. One child died and another was injured.
The 5-year-old boy, who has not been identified, was transported to a hospital and later pronounced dead. A second child was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the news release stated.
The death took place while the Blue Crabs were playing against the York Revolution in an Atlantic League of Professional Baseball game in Waldorf, about 25 miles south of Washington. The teams then halted play, and the Blue Crabs postponed their games over the weekend.
The bounce house was located on an elevated, fenced-off surface above right field, according to a report from WRC-TV, NBC’s Washington affiliate. After being lifted off the ground, it crashed on the field near the first-base line.
A spokesman for the Blue Crabs could not be immediately reached for comment.
Bounce houses have gone airborne and killed children before.
This past April, a two-year-old was killed and another child was injured in Arizona when the wind picked up the bounce house they were in and threw it into a neighboring lot.
In 2021, five Australian children died after a bouncy castle was propelled 30 feet in the air during their school’s end-of-the-year celebration.
The Consumer Products Safety Commission, an independent federal regulatory agency, recommends that bounce houses should not be used when maximum wind speeds exceed 15 to 25 miles per hour.
The group advises that if “the tops of the trees are swaying” it may not be safe to use a bounce house. Bounce houses should be secured with at least six anchor points, according to the Amusement Devices Safety Council, Britain’s workplace health and safety regulator.
