One bounce. One bad landing. One broken neck. That is all it takes at an indoor trampoline park.
Imagine a Saturday afternoon at a crowded adventure park near Town of Indian Lake. The music is loud, the air is thick with the smell of pizza and sweat, and the courts are packed with children of all ages. You see a teenage attendant—perhaps seventeen years old, making minimum wage, and hired only two weeks ago—glancing at his phone while leaning against a foam-padded rail. On the court in front of him, a 200-pound adult is jumping in the same section as your 60-pound child. The adult lands just as your child is pushing off. In a fraction of a second, the energy transfer moves through the trampoline bed, multiplying your child’s launch force by up to four times. Your child is no longer jumping; they are a projectile. They land off-balance, their leg snaps, and a scream rips through the facility—the kind of scream that Kaitlin Hill, an Alabama mother whose son Colton suffered a broken femur at a park, described to ABC News as “the worst scream that you could ever have heard from a child.”
At The Manginello Law Firm, also known as Attorney911, we know that what happened next at that facility in Town of Indian Lake was not an accident. It was the predictable result of a system built on business decisions that put profit margins ahead of child safety. From our offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, and our federal court experience across the Southern District of Texas, we represent families whose lives were changed in a single jump. Ralph Manginello has spent more than 25 years holding massive corporations accountable, from multinational oil companies in the BP Texas City refinery litigation to institutional giants. Now, we are bringing that same relentless litigation architecture to the trampoline park industry.
If your child was injured at a trampoline park serving Town of Indian Lake—whether at the Urban Air in Harlingen, the Xtreme Jump in San Benito, or the Get Air in Brownsville—the clock is already running. The park’s surveillance DVR systems typically overwrite footage in as little as seven to thirty days. The “incident report” you were asked to sign is being revised by corporate risk managers as we speak. You need a team that doesn’t just “handle personal injury,” but understands the physics of double-bounce energy transfer, the medical specificity of a Salter-Harris growth plate fracture, and the corporate archeology required to pierce the five-layer defendant stack.
We are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure—the same catastrophic muscle and organ breakdown we see in children who spend two hours jumping in high-heat indoor environments in South Texas. We know the medicine, we know the standards, and we know how to make them pay. Call us today at 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Our associate attorney Lupe Peña is a native Spanish speaker who used to defend these very companies. Now, he turns their playbook against them.
The Regulatory Vacuum: Why Texas Parks Are “Jump at Your Own Risk”
Families in Town of Indian Lake deserve to know a hard truth: Texas has no statewide trampoline park safety law. While approximately eleven states have passed legislation requiring parks to submit to inspections, report injuries, or carry specific insurance minimums, Texas remains a regulatory vacuum. Under the Texas Amusement Ride Safety Inspection and Insurance Act (Texas Occupations Code Chapter 2151), the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) regulates “Class B” inflatable rides like bungee trampolines and inflatable obstacle courses. However, the main trampoline decks—the very source of the majority of catastrophic injuries—are statutorily excluded.
This means that for the dozens of parks across the Rio Grande Valley and the hundreds across Texas, there is no government inspector checking mat tension, foam pit depth, or attendant ratios. The only thing standing between a child and a lifetime of disability is the park’s own internal “standard,” which is often a voluntary floor they drafted for themselves.
We don’t accept that vacuum. We hold operators to the industry-authored standard, ASTM F2970. Even though it is voluntary in Texas, it establishes the legal duty of care. When a park serving Town of Indian Lake ignores F2970’s requirement for age and weight separation, or violates the mandatory attendant-to-jumper ratios, they aren’t just being sloppy; they are committing gross negligence. That is the opening we use to defeat the waiver you signed at the kiosk.
In Town of Indian Lake, our knowledge of the local court systems in Cameron County and our familiarity with the major Level 1 pediatric trauma centers in the region allow us to move faster than the defense. We know that the Cameron County jury pool is often willing to hold corporate defendants accountable for putting local children in danger. We have spent 25 years preparing for the fight that starts the moment you call (888) 288-9911.
What Happened: The Mechanics of a Systemic Failure
A trampoline injury is frequently framed by the defense as a “freak accident” or an “inherent risk.” We reject that framing. After 25 years of trial work, we know that every catastrophic injury has a named mechanism and a documented safety violation behind it.
The Double-Bounce: Physics vs. Profit
The most common cause of major fractures in Town of Indian Lake trampoline parks is the double-bounce. When two people jump on the same bed, or even adjacent beds in an interconnected court system, the energy from the heavier jumper is transferred to the lighter one. The smaller child is 14 times more likely to be injured in these scenarios. ASTM F2970 requires parks to “operationalize” age and weight separation. When an Urban Air or Sky Zone allows a 200-pound adult to jump near a 60-pound child, they are violating the very standard the industry wrote for itself.
Foam Pits: The Cervical Danger Zone
Foam pits in parks like Xtreme Jump or Get Air look soft, but they are often the site of permanent paralysis. If the foam cubes have compressed over time or the pit is not refilled to its required depth (typically 6-8 feet of displacement protection), a child landing head-first will strike the hard concrete floor or a dense pad beneath. This leads to cervical hyperflexion and axial loading—the same biomechanics as a diving injury into a shallow pool.
The industry knows this. That is why many chains are replacing foam pits with airbags. But those that remain in Town of Indian Lake and the surrounding RGV often fail basic depth-check logs. We subpoena those logs. We find the weeks where the “daily check” was signed by an employee who wasn’t even on the clock that day. That is how we build a case for gross negligence in Texas.
Adjacent Attractions: The New Frontier of Injury
Modern parks are no longer just trampolines. They have bolted on Sky Rider ziplines, climbing walls, and electric go-karts. In December 2025, a six-year-old girl named Emma Riddle was killed at an Urban Air in Port St. Lucie, Florida, when a go-kart malfunctioned. In Sugar Land, Texas, a fourteen-year-old girl fell 30 feet from a climbing wall because an attendant strapped the harness but failed to attach the fall-protection equipment.
These “adventure” features are often supervised by the same under-trained teenagers who watch the trampoline courts. In Texas, these attractions often fall into the TDI Class B inflatable category, which requires a $1 million insurance policy and a state compliance sticker. We pull those TDI records via the Texas Public Information Act. If the sticker is missing or the insurance is lapsed, the park’s defense is over before it begins.
Most personal injury firms can’t tell you the difference between an ASTM F2970 violation and a TDI Chapter 2151 violation. We can. Ralph Manginello and our legal team use this specificity to drive settlements that reflect the true lifetime cost of the injury. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911.
Who is Responsible: Piercing the Corporate Shield
When you sue a park in Town of Indian Lake, you aren’t just suing a local LLC. The trampoline industry is built on layers of corporations designed to hide the money and isolate the blame. We follow the archeology of the corporate structure to find the deepest pockets.
- The Operator LLC: The local business whose name is on the lease. They are usually undercapitalized and have a $1 million primary insurance policy.
- The Franchisee: A multi-unit owner who may own five or ten Urban Air or Altitude locations across South Texas. They have their own umbrella policies.
- The Franchisor: Entities like Sky Zone Franchising LLC or UATP Management LLC. They dictate the operations manual, the training videos, and the safety rules. If the rules are bad, or they didn’t audit the park, they are liable.
- The Corporate Parent: Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly CircusTrix, backed by Palladium Equity Partners) or Unleashed Brands (backed by Seidler Equity Partners). These are the multinational giants with tens of millions in excess insurance layers.
- The Manufacturers: Companies like Jumpking, Skywalker, or UA Attractions LLC who designed the defective equipment.
In the case of Damion Collins v. Urban Air, an arbitrator in 2023 awarded $15.6 million for a quadriplegia injury. Highlighting our strategy, the franchisor (UATP Management) was held responsible for 40% of that award. We don’t stop at the lobby. We go upstream to the boardroom decisions that produced the injury in Town of Indian Lake.
Hablamos Español. Llame al 1-888-ATTY-911. Lupe Peña habla con usted directamente—sin intérpretes.
The Waiver Myth: Why You Still Have a Case
The first thing an insurance adjuster will say when they call you (and they will call you within 48 hours) is: “You signed a waiver, so there is nothing we can do.”
That is the Policy Limit Shell Game. They want you to believe that a piece of paper ended your child’s rights. In Texas, they are wrong for three major reasons:
- The Munoz Rule: In Munoz v. II Jaz Inc., Texas courts established that a parent cannot bind a minor child to a pre-injury waiver of their own personal injury claims. Your signature might affect your right to recover for medical bills you paid, but it does not stop your child from suing for their own pain, suffering, and permanent impairment.
- The Gross Negligence Carve-Out: Texas law, including the landmark Moriel decision, does not allow a waiver to shield a defendant from gross negligence. If the park knew a mat was torn (as in the Cosmic Jump $11.485M verdict) or knew they were dangerously understaffed and ignored the risk, the waiver is void.
- The Delfingen Spanish-Language Attack: If your primary language is Spanish and the park presented you with an English-only iPad waiver at a busy counter without offering a translation, that contract may have never been legally formed. Under the Delfingen doctrine, we challenge waivers that were “signed” without the signer having a meaningful chance to understand the terms.
Most firms see a waiver and close the file. At Attorney911, we see a waiver and look for the hole in it. Our associate attorney Lupe Peña used to sit on the other side of the table—defending trampoline parks and recreation centers. He knows exactly where their waivers are full of holes. He knows the arguments the insurance companies use because he literally helped write them. Now, he uses that playbook against them.
Call (888) 288-9911 today. Your child’s case is decided by what gets preserved this week.
Catastrophic Injuries: Measuring a Lifetime of Damage
A trampoline injury in a developing body is a lifelong event. Children’s bones are different from adults’. Their growth plates (physes) are made of cartilage and are more vulnerable to failure than the bone itself.
Salter-Harris Growth Plate Fractures
An eight-year-old who suffers a Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia near Town of Indian Lake isn’t just dealing with “a broken leg.” Because the growth plate is damaged, that leg may stop growing correctly. A deformity that isn’t visible now might manifest at age 14 as a measurably shorter leg or a permanent limp. We work with pediatric orthopedic surgeons to build a Life-Care Plan that accounts for the corrective surgeries, orthotics, and physical therapy your child will need for the next decade.
SCIWORA: The Invisible Spine Injury
Pediatric cervical spines are ligamentous and flexible. A child can suffer a spinal cord injury without a visible fracture on a CT scan—a condition called SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality). If a park monitor in the Rio Grande Valley tells an injured child to “walk it off” after a foam pit landing, they could be converting a treatable concussion into permanent paralysis. This is why we demand medical evaluations at Level 1 trauma centers like those serving Harlingen and Brownsville.
Exertional Rhabdomyolysis
In the South Texas heat, a child jumping for ninety minutes in a poorly ventilated park is at extreme risk for rhabdomyolysis. This is the same muscle-and-organ breakdown we are litigating in our $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston. If your child had cola-colored urine or rock-hard muscles after a park visit, their kidneys may have been subjected to life-threatening toxicity. This requires expert medical-legal documentation that most general practice firms don’t even know to look for.
A Salter-Harris fracture is not “a broken ankle.” It’s a damages calculation that anchors in the $500K-$2M range nationally because of the decade of monitoring required. We represent families who need those resources to keep their child’s future intact.
The Evidence Clock: 7-30 Days Until the Proof Vanishes
The trampoline park industry relies on evidence disappearing. Every minute the park stays silent, the more likely it is that the surveillance footage of the accident is being overwritten.
When you retain Attorney911, our preservation-of-evidence scaffold goes out within 24 hours. We don’t just “request” the video; we send a formal litigation hold that puts the franchisor, the operator, and the insurer on notice. If they destroy that video after our letter arrives, we move for an adverse inference instruction. We tell the jury they must assume the destroyed video showed the park was negligent.
We demand more than just video:
- Kiosk Metadata: We pull the audit logs from the waiver system. If the “signature” happened at a time that doesn’t match your visit, or if the “version” of the waiver is one they retrofitted after the injury, we find it.
- Staffing Logs: We cross-reference the time-clock data with the ASTM F2970 ratio requirements. If the park had 60 jumpers and only one teenager on duty, the liability is established.
- Incident Report Forensics: We use digital forensic tools to see who “revised” the incident report and when. The original version often says “attendant was in the restroom”; the revised version says “incident was unavoidable.” We find the first one.
Do not wait for the park to “do the right thing.” They won’t. They have a system for denying trampoline injury claims. We have a system for winning them. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today.
Why Choose The Manginello Law Firm?
Families in Town of Indian Lake and across Cameron County have choices. But most personal injury firms handle a trampoline case the way they would handle a fender-bender. They don’t have the technical expertise to depose a biomechanical engineer about mass-ratio launch force. They don’t have the corporate experience to take on a private-equity-backed giant like Palladium Equity.
- 25+ Years of Courtroom Battle: Ralph Manginello is a veteran of the Southern District of Texas. He has fought BP and Walmart and Amazon.
- The Former Defense Edge: Lupe Peña knows their playbook from the inside. He knows where they hide their excess insurance towers and which waiver clauses are “wet paper bags” in Texas law.
- The Rhabdo/Medical Bridge: We are a law firm that understands muscle-cell pathophysiology. Our UH case means we already have the expert nephrologists and toxicologists on speed dial.
- No Risk Representation: We work on a contingency fee. You pay nothing upfront. We advance all costs for the experts your child’s case requires. If we don’t win, you owe us nothing.
As client Chad Harris said, “You are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” When you call us, you aren’t getting a call center. You are getting the lawyers who will stand in a Cameron County courtroom and tell your child’s story.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if I signed the waiver?
Yes. In Texas, parents generally cannot waive a minor child’s right to sue for personal injuries. Additionally, no waiver in the state covers gross negligence, which we often find in these cases through understaffing or poorly maintained equipment. If the park violated its own safety rules, the waiver is often legally irrelevant.
How much is my child’s case worth?
Every case is unique, but the stakes are high. The largest jury verdict against a US trampoline park is $11.485 million at Cosmic Jump in Houston. Serious spinal or brain injuries typically anchor in the multi-million dollar range. Even fracture cases with growth-plate involvement can recover $500,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the long-term prognosis.
Why didn’t the park call 911?
Many parks, including locations like the Urban Air in Southlake, have been accused in public reviews of instructing staff not to call 911. This is a tactic to downplay injuries and keep emergency responders from documenting the scene. If you had to call 911 yourself, that is major evidence of a park’s disregard for patron safety.
How long do I have to do something—is there a deadline?
In Texas, you have two years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit, and for minors, that time is often extended until two years after their 18th birthday. However, the evidence deadline is much shorter. The video survives only 7 to 30 days. Witnesses move on. Call us in the first week to preserve the case.
Does it matter which brand—is Sky Zone safer than Urban Air?
Most chains follow similar designs. What matters is the specific operator’s management and whether they cut corners on staff for profit. Whether it was an Urban Air, Altitude, or Get Air, our team performs the same corporate archeology to find the parent company and their insurance tower.
Part XIV — Una Nota para Familias Hispanohablantes en Town of Indian Lake
Si su familia prefiere hablar en español, llame directamente a 1-888-ATTY-911. Nuestro abogado asociado Lupe Peña es hispanohablante nativo y representa a nuestros clientes directamente—sin intérpretes, sin traductores, sin demoras.
En el Valle del Río Grande, muchas familias firman documentos en inglés sin entender completamente sus derechos. Bajo la doctrina de Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela, si el parque le presentó una renuncia (waiver) solo en inglés y usted no domina el idioma, esa firma puede ser invalidada. No deje que el idioma sea una barrera para la justicia de su hijo. Su familia merece un abogado que peleará tan duro como peleó la familia Lakhani en Sugar Land.
What happened to your child at an adventure park near Town of Indian Lake wasn’t an accident—it was the output of a system designed to maximize jumpers per hour at the lowest possible cost. The AAP has been warning about these hazards since 1999. ASTM F2970 was written by the industry itself as a safety floor, and the park chose to operate below it.
The park has lawyers. The corporate parent has private-equity-backed defense firms. Their insurance adjusters are trained to minimize your pain. We are built for exactly this fight. Ralph Manginello and the team at Attorney911 bring the federal-court experience, the technical standards mastery, and the compassion of a firm that treats every child like our own.
Your child’s case depends on the evidence preserved this week. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We answer 24/7. No fee unless we win. The case starts today.
Attorney911 | The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC
1-888-ATTY-911
Hablamos Español.
