At the Altitude Trampoline Park on West Campbell Road in Richardson, just a few minutes from the University of Texas at Dallas campus, a Saturday afternoon feels like a rite of passage for families. The parking lot is full, the air is thick with the scent of pizza, and the sound of hundreds of children catching air is deafening. But for many parents in Richardson, that afternoon of “family fun” ends with a sound that Kaitlin Hill described to ABC News in words we hear all too often: “The worst scream that you could ever have heard from a child.”
Her son Colton was three years old when a heavier jumper double-bounced him, snapping his femur—the strongest bone in the human body. As he lay in a body cast for months, his family was left with the same realization that hits every parent in the trauma bay at Children’s Medical Center Dallas or Medical City Plano: “We had no idea.”
If your child was injured at a trampoline park in Richardson, or on a backyard trampoline in neighborhoods like Richardson Heights or Canyon Creek, you are likely hearing the same thing from insurance adjusters: “You signed the waiver.” They want you to believe that a digital signature on a kiosk at the front desk ended your rights before your child even stepped onto the court.
They are wrong. Our firm, led by Ralph Manginello with over 25 years of catastrophic injury experience, was built for exactly this fight. We don’t just handle personal injury; we dismantle the systemic architecture the trampoline industry uses to hide its liability. We know the corporate stacks of Sky Zone, Urban Air, and Altitude from the inside. Our team includes attorney Lupe Peña, who previously worked in insurance defense for recreational businesses. He literally helped write the playbook they are using against you right now.
We know which clauses in a Richardson altitude waiver are full of holes. We know that under Texas law, a parent’s signature cannot simply sign away a minor child’s right to recover for a catastrophic injury. And we know that by the time you leave the hospital, the clock is already running on the evidence you need to win.
The Richardson Trampoline Injury Evidence Clock: Why 7 to 30 Days Is Everything
In the world of trampoline park litigation, evidence is engineered to disappear. If your injury happened at a park serving the Richardson area—whether it was the local Altitude on Campbell Road or an Urban Air in a neighboring suburb—the facility’s risk management team is already at work.
- Surveillance Overwrites: Most Richardson-area trampoline park DVR systems are set to overwrite footage every 7 to 30 days. If we don’t get a spoliation letter to their general counsel immediately, the video of the double-bounce or the unpadded frame strike is gone forever.
- The “Revised” Incident Report: The report you filled out the night of the injury sits on a computer system. We know that these reports are often “updated” or “finalized” days later, curiously scrubbing mentions of missing attendants or torn mat seams. We subpoena the metadata to show every edit.
- Waiver Purges: Kiosk version history can be purged from databases in as little as 72 hours. We use digital forensics to capture the exact version of the waiver you saw on that iPad—often proving the font was too small or the disclosure was too hidden to legally count as “fair notice” in Texas.
- The Staffing Gap: The 17-year-old “court monitor” who was on his phone during your son’s injury may quit or be transferred within a month. High turnover is a feature of the industry, not a bug. We track them down before they disappear.
Our firm is the only one in Texas that treats a trampoline injury with the same forensic intensity as a refinery explosion or a major commercial trucking wreck. We have gone toe-to-toe with Fortune 500 giants like BP, Walmart, and Amazon. The private equity sponsors behind national chains like Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly CircusTrix, backed by Palladium Equity) and Unleashed Brands (Urban Air’s parent, acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in 2023) don’t intimidate us. We make them pay.
Why Richardson Trampoline Injuries Are Never “Accidents”
A trampoline injury is virtually never a “freak accident.” It is the predictable output of a business decision. The industry understands the physics of injury better than any parent. They have known for decades what happens when children and adults jump in the same zone.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has formally advised against home and recreational trampoline use since 1999, reaffirming this stance in 2012 and 2019. Despite this, manufacturers like Jumpking, Skywalker, and Bouncepro continue to sell millions of units to Richardson families. Even worse, commercial parks take that known danger and scale it to industrial proportions.
The Physics of the Double-Bounce
When a 200-pound adult lands on a trampoline bed at the same moment a 60-pound child is pushing off, kinetic energy transfers through the mat. The child isn’t jumping anymore; they are being launched by a catapult. This “double-bounce” can multiply the force on a child’s leg by up to 4x.
ASTM F2970—the safety standard written by the trampoline industry itself—requires parks to operationalize age and weight separation. When a park in Richardson ignores this to pack more jumpers onto a court during a birthday party peak, it isn’t an accident. It is a conscious disregard of the safety floor they helped build. In Texas, we call that gross negligence, and a signed waiver cannot protect a park from it.
The Foam Pit Catastrophe
Foam pits are among the most dangerous attractions in the family entertainment center model. A jumper enters a pit head-first or feet-first, assuming the foam cubes will provide uniform deceleration. But if the foam is compacted, degraded, or insufficient in depth (ASTM F2970 requires at least 42 inches of fill), the jumper strikes the concrete floor beneath.
The results are life-altering:
- Cervical Spine Trauma: Axial loading on the spine causes fractures at levels like C2 (the Ric Swezey mechanism) or C5, leading to permanent quadriplegia.
- SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality): A pediatric phenomenon where a child’s mobile spine causes cord ischemia that may not show on an initial CT scan. Children’s Medical Center Dallas sees these cases—they are orthopedic emergencies that parks are not trained to recognize.
- The Airbag Admission: The fact that chains like Sky Zone and Urban Air are increasingly replacing foam pits with pressurized airbags is a structural admission that foam pits were never safe.
We Built the Firm to Win the Medicine
One of the reasons families from Richardson and across the Metroplex choose Attorney911 is because we litigate the medicine of these injuries with unprecedented depth.
We are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit involving rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure. This is the exact same physiology we see in children who jump for extended sessions in heated Richardson parks without adequate hydration. When muscle tissue breaks down from overexertion (exertional rhabdomyolysis), myoglobin poisons the kidneys. It is a silent killer that shows up 24 to 48 hours later as “cola-colored” urine and extreme muscle pain.
Most lawyers don’t know what a creatine kinase (CK) test is. We have the medical experts, the nephrologists, and the biomechanical engineers ready to prove that your child’s kidney failure or Salter-Harris growth plate fracture was caused by the park’s operational failures.
Pediatric Bones Are Different
A “broken ankle” at age eight is not the same as a broken ankle for an adult. A fracture through a growth plate (a Salter-Harris Type II or III) can stop the bone from growing correctly. Your child might not show a limb-length discrepancy until age 14, by which point the insurance company has already tried to close the file.
We build Pediatric Life-Care Plans that project the next 60 to 80 years of your child’s life. We account for future corrective osteotomies, physical therapy intervals, and the lost earning capacity that comes with permanent impairment. While the park’s adjuster might offer a $3,000 “Med-Pay” check, we are looking at the $500,000 to $2 million reality of a growth-arrest injury.
Who Is Liable for Your Injury in Richardson?
We go upstream. The local Richardson operator is almost always undercapitalized, carrying a $1 million policy that won’t cover a catastrophic injury. We identify every layer of the 5-Layer Defendant Stack:
- Operator LLC: The specific entity running the park on West Campbell Rd.
- Franchisee: The multi-unit owner group.
- Franchisor: Altitude Franchise Holdings or Sky Zone Franchising LLC.
- Corporate Parent: Sky Zone, Inc. or Unleashed Brands LLC.
- Private Equity Sponsor: The money behind the cost-cutting—Palladium Equity Partners or Seidler Equity.
Beyond the park, we look at Product Liability. If a net failed on a Skywalker or Jumpking trampoline in your backyard, we sue the manufacturer and the retailer (like Walmart or Amazon). Under recent Texas doctrine and the Bolger v. Amazon lineage, retailers can be held responsible for distributing defective products they claim are safe for children.
Frequently Asked Questions for Richardson Families
Can I sue if I signed the waiver at the Richardson Altitude or Urban Air?
Yes. In Texas, waivers only protect against ordinary negligence, not gross negligence. If the park violated ASTM F2970, ignored a known equipment tear, or understaffed a court, that is gross negligence. Furthermore, under Munoz v. II Jaz Inc., a parent generally cannot bind a minor child to a pre-injury release of the child’s own personal injury claim.
What should I do if the park manager tells me they won’t call 911?
This is a documented industry pattern (Urban Air Southlake Tripadvisor reviewers have reported similar instructions). If the park refuses, you call 911 yourself immediately. Failure to provide emergency care is evidence we use to prove conscious indifference and secure punitive damages.
How much is my child’s trampoline injury case worth?
Every case is different, but we anchor our work in established results. Cosmic Jump in Houston paid $11.485 million for a TBI. Damion Collins received $15.6 million in arbitration against Urban Air. A Salter-Harris fracture with growth arrest typically anchors in the $500k to $2.5 million range.
Is my backyard trampoline covered by my homeowners’ insurance?
Many homeowners’ policies in Richardson neighborhoods specifically exclude trampoline injuries unless you have a rider. If they exclude, we look for an Umbrella Policy or pursue a Product Liability claim against the manufacturer (Jumpking, Springfree, Bouncepro).
We speak Spanish. Will that matter for the waiver?
Si. Under the Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela doctrine, a waiver presented in English to a Spanish-speaking family who was not given a chance to understand it may be legally void. Lupe Peña of our firm is a native Spanish speaker and represents our clients directly—without interpreters.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit in Texas?
Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury. While this is tolled until a minor child turns 18, wait-and-see is a disaster for your case. The evidence—video, witness memory, maintenance logs—disappears in weeks. You need a lawyer to send a preservation demand in the first 48 hours.
Why Attorney911 Is the Right Choice for Your Family
We are not a volume firm. We are a catastrophic injury firm. When you call us, you aren’t just a number; as client Chad Harris said, “You are FAMILY to them.”
- No Fee Unless We Win: We work on a 100% contingency basis. We advance all costs—the $20,000 for a biomechanical reconstruction, the fees for the pediatric orthopedic surgeon, and the cost of forensic digital examiners to recover that “missing” video.
- Insider Knowledge: We know the insurance defense playbook because Lupe Peña used to sit on their side of the table. He knows exactly how they try to minimize Salter-Harris fractures and TBI symptoms.
- National Reach from a Texas Base: While we are headquartered in Houston with offices in Austin and Beaumont, our trampoline knowledge base is national. We track chain-wide pattern evidence, like the Sky Rider zipline strangulations across multiple Urban Air locations in Georgia, Illinois, and Nevada.
Your child’s recovery and your family’s future are decided by what happens in the days following the injury. Don’t let the park’s risk management team bully you with a piece of paper. Call The Manginello Law Firm today at 1-888-ATTY-911.
We will handle the adjuster. We will preserve the video. We will build the case. You focus on your child.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Your case starts today.
The Richardson Parent’s Safety Checklist — If You Decide to Go
If you decide to take your children to a trampoline park in the Richardson area, run this 5-minute lobby inspection first:
- Count the monitors: If there is only one monitor for 50 jumpers on the main court, leave. The ASTM best practice is roughly 1:32.
- Look for phones: If you see a monitor on their phone, the park is not being supervised. Leave.
- Check the foam pit: If you see the concrete floor through the cubes, or the cubes look compressed and small, skip this attraction.
- Enforce the one-jumper rule: Tell your child that if a bigger kid starts bouncing on their bed, they must step off immediately.
- Skip the flips: Acrobatic maneuvers are classified as “Advanced Skills” under ASTM F2970. Public courts on a Saturday are not the place for them.
If something goes wrong, remember: Photo everything. Refuse the Med-Pay check. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
