Bounce houses, the inflatable structures that have long been a staple of birthday parties and kids’ festivities worldwide, may be more dangerous than many parents realize, according to a new study.
“The bottom line is: Bounce houses can and do tip over, roll over or get lofted in the air in nonsevere winds,” Knox said, “and it often happens during what most people would call ‘good weather.’ ”
At least 28 people have died and 479 others have been injured in 132 wind-related bounce house incidents since 2000, according to Knox — an estimate he and his team of researchers believe is probably an undercount.
In 80 of the wind-related cases, the authors could pinpoint a clear cause of the incident: for example, a rogue “dust devil” spinning through the desert in the Southwest, a powerful cold front bringing with it a strong gust of wind or a pop-up thunderstorm spawning dangerous winds right overhead.
“When the winds get to be too much, these bounce houses need not only to be evacuated but also deflated,” Thomas Gill, second author on the paper and a professor of environmental science at the University of Texas at El Paso, told UGA Today. “There have been cases where a bounce house was empty, but it blew away and struck a bystander.”
But in just under half the recorded incidents, there was no abnormal hazard, and locally observed winds were below 25 mph — the threshold at which the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) advises that bounce houses not be used.
That speed is also well below the National Weather Service’s criteria for a high wind warning, and it generally does not meet the criteria for a high wind advisory.
More than a third of the incidents occurred when the wind speeds nearby were between zero and 20 miles per hour, though Knox cautioned that high winds could be very localized if, for example, they were driven by a dust devil, small whirlwinds typically fueled by hot air that sometimes produce winds over 60 mph.
Bounce house regulations vary from state to state, with 19 states relying on the ASTM’s guidelines. An additional 17 states have no guidelines for usage of the inflatables.
“Because of this lack of consistency, it’s important for parents to pay careful attention to how bounce houses should be used and operated, whether at their homes for birthday parties, or at a school carnival, or wherever,” Knox said.
Knox and his team found that many of the casualties they identified could have been prevented if the bounce houses had been properly anchored to the ground by a professional, as the ASTM recommends.
The ASTM also recommends that bounce houses are operated by professionals who keep a continual eye on the weather in case they need to be evacuated and deflated.
According to the database built by Knox’s team of researchers, the last fatal bounce house incident in the United States happened in July 2019, when winds below 25 mph launched a playhouse up in the air before it crashed into power lines while kids were still inside. One 9-year-old was killed, and two other children were seriously injured.
The deadliest bounce house incident on record occurred in the Australian state of Tasmania last December. Six children were killed and three others injured after a wind gust sent the inflatable structure upward of 30 feet into the air. Bounce houses in Australia are required to be anchored to the ground and regularly inspected, though it is unclear whether guidelines were followed in that case, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Wind-related injuries, while tragic and often more severe, account for just a small fraction of bounce-house-related injuries.
In the United States alone, more than 10,000 people annually visit the emergency room for bouncy-castle-related injuries, according to Knox. A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2012 found that injury rates in inflatable amusement devices in the United States increased 15-fold from 1995 to 2010.
