“Employees are specifically instructed by management to NOT call 911… staff have been told by management to down-play injuries.” These were the words written by a mother on Tripadvisor about the original Urban Air Adventure Park right here in Southlake. Her ten-year-old daughter had stepped from a padded walkway onto an active trampoline, shattering her ankle. Instead of a medical response, the parent reported that her child sat for forty-five minutes without aid while the facility focused on managing its own liability.
One bounce. One bad landing. One broken bone. That is all it takes at a trampoline park in Southlake. Whether your child was injured at the Urban Air on Southlake Boulevard, a backyard Jumpking in a Southlake master-planned neighborhood, or a school field trip destination elsewhere in Tarrant County, you are currently standing where thousands of parents have stood before: at a hospital bedside, struggling with questions that the park’s insurance company is already being paid to avoid answering.
At Attorney911, led by managing partner Ralph Manginello with over 25 years of experience, we have built our practice around making corporate defendants pay for the consequences of their business decisions. Your child’s injury in Southlake was not a “freak accident.” It was the predictable output of a system designed to maximize profit by cutting corners on safety. We don’t just “handle personal injury cases.” We lead a specialized trampoline injury practice that understands the corporate archeology of these chains, the biomechanics of pediatric fractures, and the exact legal arguments required to shred the waiver you signed at the kiosk.
If you are a parent sitting in a Southlake trauma bay tonight, you need more than sympathy. You need to know that the evidence of what happened to your child is evaporating. Surveillance video in Southlake facilities can be overwritten in as little as seven days. Incident reports are being “finalized” by managers trained to minimize fault. What you do in the next 48 to 72 hours will determine whether the parties responsible for your child’s lifelong recovery will ever be held accountable.
Why the Injury to Your Child in Southlake Was Foreseeable
The defense’s opening move is always to claim that trampolines are “inherently risky” and that your child assumed the risk by jumping. As attorneys with federal court experience in the Southern District of Texas and two decades of experience fighting multinational corporations like BP, we know how to dismantle that framing before it ever reaches a Southlake jury.
Foreseeability is the heartbeat of a negligence case. A hazard is foreseeable when a reasonable operator knows it exists and fails to prevent it. In Southlake, every trampoline operator—commercial or residential—acts against a massive stack of historical and medical evidence:
- The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Warning: The AAP has advised against recreational trampoline use since 1999. They reaffirmed this position in 2012 and updated it in 2019. For over twenty-five years, the highest medical authority for children has said that trampolines do not belong in Southlake backyards or commercial venues.
- ASTM F2970—The Industry’s Own Admission: This is the safety standard for commercial trampoline parks. Crucially, as we remind every adjuster, this standard was written by the trampoline industry itself. They admitted, in writing, what the safety floor should be regarding attendant ratios, age separation, and equipment maintenance. When a Southlake park violates F2970, they aren’t breaking some external government rule; they are failing the very standard their own peer group established as necessary to keep children alive.
- CPSC Data: The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been warning parents about trampoline hazards since the 1970s. With approximately 300,000 trampoline-related ER visits annually, no manufacturer like Skywalker or Jumpking, and no park chain like Urban Air or Sky Zone, can claim they were unaware of the risks.
The “worst scream you could ever hear from a child,” as Kaitlin “Kati” Hill told ABC News after her three-year-old son Colton broke his femur at a park, is a sound the trampoline industry has been hearing for decades. They choose to continue operating as they do in Southlake because the reward of the birthday-party economy outweighs the risk of the occasional catastrophic settlement.
Learn more in our video guide: “I’ve Had an Accident — What Should I Do First?” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCox4Lq7zBM
Southlake Trampoline Parks: A Market Built on Margin Pressure
Southlake and the surrounding Tarrant County corridor are a saturated market for adventure parks. Urban Air was founded right here in Southlake in 2011 by Michael Browning Jr. Altitude Trampoline Park is headquartered in nearby Fort Worth. Sky Zone Irving and Hurst serve the same families.
This density creates intense competition. When parks compete on price and throughput, safety is the first thing to slip. We look for the “Staff Training Gap” in every Southlake case. The person watching your child on a Saturday afternoon is typically a 16-to-19-year-old making near minimum wage. Our investigation protocols often reveal that these “court monitors” receive only two to four hours of training before supervising live jumpers. Most have no CPR or first-aid certification, despite IATP (International Association of Trampoline Parks) certifications being available for as little as $25.
In Southlake, where family activities peak on weekends and school breaks, the attendant-to-jumper ratio often collapses. While industry best practices suggest one monitor per 32 jumpers, we routinely see ratios of 1:60 or worse during peak shifts at DFW-area parks. This understaffing isn’t a mistake; it’s a budget decision made by the corporate parent or the private equity firm backing the chain—such as Palladium Equity Partners for Sky Zone or Seidler Equity Partners, which acquired Urban Air’s parent, Unleashed Brands, in 2023.
As client Donald Wilcox said, “One company said they would not accept my case. Then I got a call from Manginello… I got a call to come pick up this handsome check.” Other firms decline trampoline cases because they are afraid of the waiver. We aren’t. We’ve gone head-to-head with some of the largest corporations in human history. The conglomerates behind Southlake’s trampoline parks are just another set of defendants.
The Mechanisms of Injury: Why Southlake Facilities Fail
To win your child’s case, we must prove the specific mechanism of failure. Each attraction at a Southlake park has a signature way of breaking a child’s body.
The Double-Bounce: The Catapult Effect
This is the most common cause of catastrophic pediatric injury in Southlake parks. When a 200-pound adult lands on the trampoline bed just as a 60-pound child is pushing off, the kinetic energy from the adult transfers through the mat. The child doesn’t just jump; they are launched with force multiplied by up to 4x. This is how femurs get shattered and growth plates get destroyed. ASTM F2970 requires age and weight separation specifically to prevent this, but monitors in Southlake frequently fail to enforce these rules.
Foam Pit Failures
Foam pits in Southlake look like a safe landing, but they are often “deadly soft.” Over time, the blocks in a foam pit compress and lose their deceleration capacity. If the pit isn’t deep enough or the foam hasn’t been rotated—a common corner cut for labor costs—a child jumping in can strike the hard floor beneath. This is the mechanism that paralyzed Anthony Seitz in a $3 million Minnesota settlement and killed Ty Thomasson at SkyPark Phoenix. The industry know this, which is why many are switching to airbags. If the Southlake park your child visited still used a foam pit, they were using outdated, more dangerous technology.
Harness and Attraction Failures
Southlake’s adventure parks are bolting on more aggressive attractions: climbing walls, ziplines like the Sky Rider, and “Leap of Faith” jumps. The 2019 death of 12-year-old Matthew Lu at an Altitude park occurred because employees failed to secure his harness before he climbed. In Sugar Land, a fourteen-year-old girl fell thirty feet at an Urban Air because an attendant never attached the fall-protection equipment. When staff are overworked and undertrained, these harness systems become deathtraps.
Hygiene and Biological Hazards
In a vertical most firms ignore, we investigate the sanitation of Southlake facilities. Foam blocks absorb sweat, saliva, and blood. They are impossible to truly sanitize. We investigate cases of MRSA, Staph, and other infections acquired at Southlake parks. If your child became sick or developed a “rash” that turned into a serious infection after a visit to a park near Northgate Drive or Continental Boulevard, the park’s negligence in maintenance may be to blame.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 right now. Your child’s case is decided by what gets preserved this week. Our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours of your retention.
Dismantling the Southlake Waiver: Why the Paper Won’t Stop Us
The park’s adjuster will call you. They will be “checking in.” Eventually, they will mention the waiver you signed at the Southlake kiosk and imply you have no case. They are wrong.
Our team includes associate attorney Lupe Peña, who used to sit on the other side of the table—defending insurance companies and recreation businesses. He knows the playbook they use in Southlake because he helped write it. Now, he uses that knowledge to identify the holes in their defense.
There are five primary ways we defeat a Southlake trampoline park waiver:
- The Gross Negligence Carve-Out: Texas law is clear—you cannot waive a claim for gross negligence. In the landmark Cosmic Jump case in Harris County, a jury awarded $11.485 million because the park had actual knowledge of a torn mat and didn’t fix it. If the Southlake park knew of a hazard (an understaffed court, a worn pad, a prior injury) and did nothing, the waiver is a legal nullity.
- The “Munoz” Rule (Minor Children): In Texas, specifically under Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. (1993), a parent generally cannot sign away a minor child’s personal injury cause of action. While the parent’s own claim might be limited, the child’s right to recovery remains intact.
- Inadequate Conspicuousness: Under the Dresser fair-notice doctrine, a waiver must be conspicuous and specifically mention “negligence.” Many Southlake parks use kiosk systems where the important legal text is buried in a tiny scroll window or requires twenty clicks to reach. These often fail the Texas “fair notice” test.
- Bilingual Formation Issues: Under Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela, if your primary language is Spanish and you were pressured to sign an English-only waiver at a Southlake park without a translation, the waiver may be void. Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña habla con usted directamente.
- Scope of Activity: The waiver typically covers “trampoline use.” It does not cover a slip in a Southlake park’s bathroom, food poisoning from their Krave bar, or being assaulted by another patron in an unsupervised area.
Learn more in our video: “What to Do if Your Insurance Claim Is Denied” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsdXq0WOH8M
The Medicine of a Southlake Trampoline Injury
A “broken leg” at a Southlake park is rarely just a broken leg. Pediatric bone biology is distinct from adult biology. Because children’s bones are still developing, they often sustain Salter-Harris growth plate fractures.
If your child’s growth plate was damaged at a Southlake park, they may face a decade of orthopedic monitoring. A fracture at age eight can lead to a leg that grows crooked or shorter than the other, necessitating multiple corrective surgeries as the child grows. Most Southlake adjusters try to settle these based on the initial ER bill. We calculate the next seventy years of your child’s life.
We also look for SCIWORA—Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality. A child in Southlake might land head-first in a foam pit and have a “normal” CT scan in the emergency room, only to lose feeling in their legs six hours later. And we investigate the “cola-colored” urine associated with exertional rhabdomyolysis. If your child spent 90 minutes jumping on a hot Southlake afternoon without mandatory water breaks and ended up in a Tarrant County ER with kidney issues, that is a direct result of the park’s operational failure.
We represent families. We represent children. We represent the parent at the hospital bedside watching a surgeon explain what happens when a growth plate is destroyed. That’s who we fight for in Southlake.
The Evidence Preservation Clock: 7 to 30 Days
In Southlake, the most powerful evidence often resides on a hard drive in the park’s back room. Commercial DVR systems in DFW adventure parks are typically set to overwrite on 7, 14, or 30-day cycles. Once that footage of your child’s double-bounce is gone, it is gone forever.
The park’s risk management team is working before the ambulance leaves the Southlake parking lot. They are “updating” incident reports and ensuring the 17-year-old monitor who was on her phone has a “revised” statement. We stop that cycle. Our spoliation letter demands the original native video files, the metadata of all incident report edits, and the training records of every Tarrant County employee on shift.
As client Chad Harris said, “You are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” We treat your child’s evidence like it was our own. We hire biomechanical engineers to reconstruct the launch force and pediatric experts to project the future medical needs of the child.
Frequently Asked Questions for Southlake Families
Does the Southlake park have to give me the video of the accident?
Generally, they won’t give it to you just because you ask. They will claim it’s “confidential” or “unavailable.” We subpoena the DVR hard drive. If the video “glitches” at the moment of injury, like it did in the Mathew Knight case in Georgia, we seek a $3.5 million-grade adverse inference.
How do I pay my child’s medical bills while we wait?
You pay us nothing unless we win. Zero upfront costs. We advance every expense—the biomechanist, the pediatric orthopedic consultant, the ASTM specialist. We also help families in Southlake navigate medical liens so that at the end of the case, the child keeps the maximum amount possible for their future.
Can I sue if my neighbor’s backyard trampoline in Southlake hurt my kid?
Yes. Backyard trampolines are often “attractive nuisances” under Texas law. If a Southlake homeowner failed to secure a trampoline with a gate or the equipment was UV-degraded (a major issue in the Texas sun), they and the manufacturer may be liable.
Urban Air told me that because they are a franchise, I can’t sue corporate. Is that true?
No. The $15.6 million Damion Collins award in Kansas proves that the franchisor and corporate parents can be held on the hook. We look at the actual control the franchisor exerts over Southlake operations.
What if my child was pressured to jump?
If a monitor in Southlake told your child to do a flip or jump into a crowded pit, that is “negligent undertaking.” The park made a situation more dangerous than it already was, which is a key path to defeating a waiver.
Building Your Case in Southlake: The 10-Step Architecture
When you hire our firm, we don’t wait for the insurance company to make a move. We deploy a ten-step litigation architecture:
- Immediate Spoliation Letter: Certified mail to the Southlake facility and their corporate HQ in Grapevine or Bedford.
- Scene Investigation: Deploying experts to the park near Northwest Highway or Dove Road within 48 hours.
- Corporate Search: Tracing the LLC to the franchisee, the franchisor, and the private equity parent.
- Insurance Discovery: Finding every layer—primary, umbrella, and the franchisor’s additional-insured policy.
- ASTM Audit: Comparing the Southlake park’s internal logs against the industry standard (F2970).
- Waiver Forensic: Analyzing the kiosk timestamp and metadata for formation failures.
- Witness Canvass: Finding the parents who saw the accident but haven’t been “interviewed” by the park yet.
- Ex-Employee Outreach: Finding the former Southlake attendants who quit because they were afraid of the safety conditions.
- Medical Chronology: Building the “Day in the Life” evidence of your child’s recovery across DFW medical centers.
- Trial Readiness: Preparation from Day 1 to take the case to a Tarrant County judge.
Twenty-five years. Federal court admission. BP refinery litigation experience. An active $10 million case regarding rhabdomyolysis and institutional accountability. That is what we bring to every Southlake case.
Catastrophic Results for Families in Texas
Our firm has achieved multi-million dollar results for traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and amputations—the same categories that Southlake’s high-velocity amusement attractions produce. Cosmic Jump in Harris County paid over $11 million because they chose margin over maintenance. Urban Air in Overland Park paid over $15 million because they failed to warn customers about attraction risks.
If your family’s life changed in one jump, the park’s insurer wants to close the file as quickly as possible. Don’t let them push your family around with a kiosk waiver. We know which defenses the insurance companies deploy first because one of our attorneys used to raise them.
Southlake is more than just where Urban Air was born. It is an epicenter of adventure-park risk. Your child deserves an attorney who treats them like family—and treats the park’s corporate lawyers with the tenacity of a firm that has beaten the biggest conglomerates on the planet.
Lo que le pasó a su hijo en Southlake no fue un accidente, fue el resultado de una decisión empresarial. Nuestra abogada bilingüe Lupe Peña hablará con usted directamente. No hay honorarios a menos que ganemos su caso. Estamos aquí para luchar por la recuperación de su hijo.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We answer 24/7. Hablamos Español. Our Texas offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont are the launch point, but our authority on trampoline injury law protects you across Southlake and nationwide.
The park has lawyers. The franchisor has lawyers. The private equity sponsor has lawyers. So do we.
1-888-ATTY-911. The case starts today.
