“His feet hit the mat, and almost instantly his knees buckled down, and he just let out the worst scream that you could ever have heard from a child.”
That is Kaitlin “Kati” Hill, a mother whose account of her three-year-old son Colton’s broken femur was shared over 240,000 times on social media. She told ABC News, “We had no idea. We would have never put our baby boy on a trampoline if we would have known.” Like many families in City of Odessa and across the Permian Basin, the Hill family went to a trampoline park expecting a safe environment for a Saturday afternoon. They walked out into a nightmare of body casts, surgeries, and specialized medical monitoring.
At Attorney911, we have spent more than 25 years standing at the bedsides of families exactly like the Hills. We represent families in City of Odessa who are facing the catastrophic fallout of a trampoline-related injury. Whether your child was hurt at a commercial facility like the Altitude Trampoline Park on East 42nd Street or the Urban Air in the Midland-Odessa metro, or if they were injured on a neighbor’s backyard Jumpking or Skywalker trampoline, we know the architecture of these cases.
We are launching our dedicated trampoline injury practice from a foundation of multi-million dollar results in traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury (SCI), and wrongful death litigation. Managing Partner Ralph Manginello brings over two decades of courtroom experience, including federal court admission to the Southern District of Texas. Our team includes Lupe Peña, a former insurance defense attorney who used to write the very waiver language these parks rely on. He knows which clauses are airtight and which ones are full of holes. He is also a native Spanish speaker, allowing us to represent City of Odessa’s Hispanic families directly—without interpreters and without delays.
If you are reading this from a hospital room at Medical Center Hospital or Odessa Regional, or if your child has just been discharged and the first insurance adjuster call just happened, your family’s life changed in one jump. We know what they are going to tell you: “You signed a waiver.” We are here to tell you that the waiver is a piece of paper, not a wall. We have seen what trampoline parks do after a catastrophic injury, and we know how to make them pay.
The Reality of Trampoline Injuries in West Texas
The Permian Basin climate creates unique hazards for trampoline owners and park operators. Our extreme West Texas heat, often exceeding 100 degrees for weeks at a time, accelerates the UV degradation of polypropylene netting and jump mats. The high winds and blowing dust characteristic of City of Odessa can pit metal springs and weaken frame welds. When that equipment fails, the results are devastating.
Nationally, the data is staggering. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has advised against recreational trampoline use since 1999, reaffirming this position in 2012 and 2019. Approximately 300,000 trampoline-related ER visits occur every year in the United States. According to a 2024 study in Pediatrics by Teague et al., foam pit and high-performance jumping areas in commercial parks are particularly dangerous, with injury rates as high as 2.11 per 1,000 jumper-hours.
In City of Odessa, where high-school sports and competitive cheer programs at schools like Odessa High and Permian High drive children toward rebounder equipment and tumble tracks, the exposure is constant. Yet, most families “have no idea,” as Kati Hill said. They don’t know that the industry standard for these parks, ASTM F2970, was written by the trampoline industry itself as a safety floor—a floor that many parks in Texas routinely fall through to hit revenue targets.
Why a Signed Waiver Does Not End Your Case in Texas
The most common tactic used by insurers in City of Odessa is the “Waiver Wave.” The adjuster calls and immediately tells you that because you signed the document at the kiosk, you have no case. In Texas, this is often a lie.
Our firm runs every City of Odessa trampoline waiver through a rigorous five-vector attack within 24 hours of being retained. We know that Texas law, while generally favoring contracts, provides specific “escape valves” for families:
The Gross Negligence Carve-Out
No state, including Texas, enforces a pre-injury waiver for gross negligence. Under the landmark Texas case Transportation Insurance Co. v. Moriel, gross negligence involves a subjective awareness of an extreme risk and a conscious indifference to the safety of others. When a park in City of Odessa operates at half the required attendant-to-jumper ratio required by ASTM F2970, or when they fail to rotate foam blocks in a pit that has compacted to four inches, that is gross negligence.
The most powerful proof of this is the $11.485 million verdict against Cosmic Jump in Harris County. In that case, a 16-year-old fell through a hole in a trampoline slide onto concrete. The waiver was signed. The jury awarded $6 million in punitive damages anyway because the park knew about the defect and did nothing.
The Parental Indemnity Rule (Munoz v. II Jaz)
Since 1993, the controlling case of Munoz v. II Jaz, Inc. has stood for a simple principle: a parent cannot sign away a minor child’s personal cause of action for injuries in Texas. While you may have waived your own right to sue for medical bills you paid, your child’s right to be compensated for their own pain, suffering, and permanent disability remains intact.
The Dresser “Fair Notice” Doctrine
Under Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum, a release in Texas is only enforceable if it meets two strict “fair notice” standards:
- Express Negligence: The waiver must specifically use the word “negligence.”
- Conspicuousness: The language must be bold, capitalized, or otherwise set apart.
If the City of Odessa park’s iPad waiver buried the release in twenty screens of legalese, it may be legally void.
The Bilingual-Formation Attack (Delfingen)
For many families in City of Odessa, Spanish is the primary language. Under the Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela doctrine, a Texas court can refuse to enforce a waiver if the park provided an English-only document to a patron who lacked English literacy. Lupe Peña uses this defense to protect the rights of our Spanish-speaking clients every day.
The Mechanisms of Injury: Why “Accidents” Are Actually Business Decisions
We don’t accept the park’s framing that your child’s injury was a “freak accident.” Every injury mechanism has a name, a known frequency, and an ASTM standard designed to prevent it.
- Double-Bounce Multiplier: This is the signature trampoline park injury. When an adult or older child lands while a younger child pushes off the same bed, energy transfer multiplies the child’s launch force by up to 4x. The child is not jumping; they are being catapulted. ASTM F2970 requires age and weight separation, but parks often ignore this during busy Saturday birthday parties to maximize throughput.
- Foam Pit Submersion: Foam pits look soft, but they are often “death traps” for cervical spines. If foam blocks are not rotated and replaced according to spec, they compact. A head-first entry can lead toaxial loading and permanent paralysis. The industry knows this; that is why many are switching to airbags. Continuing to use an unmaintained foam pit in City of Odessa is a cost-saving decision that puts children at risk.
- Harness and Zipline Failures: Attractions like the Sky Rider or indoor climbing walls rely on mechanical belays. In June 2022, a 14-year-old in Sugar Land fell 30 feet at an Urban Air because the harness was never attached. In December 2025, a six-year-old named Emma Riddle was killed at an Urban Air in Port St. Lucie, Florida, on a go-kart attraction. These multi-attraction venues are using the same minimum-wage teenagers to supervise high-stakes mechanical equipment.
- Extended-Jumping Rhabdomyolysis: This is a silent emergency. On hot West Texas days, a child who jumps for 90 minutes straight without proper hydration can develop rhabdomyolysis—a breakdown of muscle tissue that poisons the kidneys. This connects directly to our firm’s active $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving rhabdo and acute kidney failure. We know the medicine, we know the experts, and we know how to hold institutional defendants accountable for this pathology.
The Evidence Clock: Why the Next 7 Days Are Critical
While the Texas statute of limitations generally gives you two years to file a lawsuit (and tolls until age 20 for minors), the evidence clock is much shorter.
Trampoline park surveillance DVRs are typically set to overwrite in as little as 7 to 30 days. If you don’t have an attorney send a formal spoliation letter within the first week, the video of your child’s injury will vanish. Incident reports, which are often “revised” by corporate risk management within 48 hours of an accident, must be captured in their original form.
By day 10, the Saturday flurry of activity is gone from the park’s computer system. By day 30, the teen monitor who saw it happen may have quit or transferred to a different location. Our firm operates with a high-urgency protocol. Our spoliation letters go out by certified mail and email within 24 hours of retention. We demand the DVR hard drive, the kiosk audit logs, and the metadata for any edited incident reports.
Catastrophic Pediatric Injuries: Beyond the Initial ER Bill
A “broken leg” at age seven is not just a broken leg. In trampoline cases, we frequently see Salter-Harris growth plate fractures. Because the growth plate is made of cartilage, not bone, it fails at lower loads. An injury today can lead to a limb-length discrepancy or angular deformity that doesn’t manifest until your child is fourteen.
We represent the parent at the trauma-bay bedside watching a surgeon explain that a child’s bone may never grow straight again. To capture the full scope of your child’s losses, we retain:
- Biomechanical Engineers to calculate the energy transfer and force of impact.
- Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeons to project the decade of monitoring needed.
- Life-Care Planners to convert a 50-year medical forecast into the dollars the insurer must pay.
- Forensic Economists to quantify your child’s lost earning capacity as an adult.
Our firm advanced the cost for every one of these experts. You pay nothing unless we win. Your child’s recovery fund stays untouched while we build the case for maximum value.
Holding Corporate Conglomerates Accountable
The parent companies behind national chains—Sky Zone, Inc. (backed by Palladium Equity Partners) and Unleashed Brands (parent of Urban Air, owned by Seidler Equity Partners)—operate with significant corporate defense budgets. Ralph Manginello has litigated against Fortune 500 giants like BP after the Texas City refinery disaster. We’ve gone head-to-head with Walmart, Amazon, and FedEx. The fleet of lawyers these park chains bring doesn’t intimidate us; we’ve already beaten them on a larger scale.
We pierce the five-layer defendant stack: the Operator LLC, the Franchisee, the Franchisor, the Parent Corporation, and the Private Equity Sponsor. We know that the local LLC is often undercapitalized. The money is upstream, in the umbrella and excess insurance layers that we are built to find.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if I signed the waiver?
Yes. As discussed, Texas has specific rules about how a waiver must be written and presented. Further, no waiver can protect a park from gross negligence. If the park violated its own safety rules or ASTM F2970, the waiver may not apply. In Harris County, the Cosmic Jump jury awarded $11.485 million despite a signed waiver.
Is my child’s headache after a trampoline fall normal?
No. Any headache after a significant fall could be a sign of a traumatic brain injury (TBI). You should also be aware of SCIWORA—Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality. A child can have significant spinal cord damage even if an X-ray or CT scan looks normal. If your child has neck pain or listlessness, seek a pediatric neurology consult immediately.
The insurance company offered a $3,000 “Med-Pay” check. Should I take it?
This is a standard insurance tactic known as the “Med-Pay Trojan Horse.” Often, the fine print on that small check or the accompanying release form ends your entire case. Never deposit an insurer’s check or sign a release until we have reviewed it.
How much does it cost to hire an Odessa trampoline injury lawyer?
Nothing upfront. We work on a contingency fee basis, meaning we only get paid if we win your case. We advance all the investigation and expert witness costs.
What if the injury happened on a backyard trampoline?
Backyard cases are often “attractive nuisance” claims. If a neighbor’s trampoline was unsecured and your child wandered over, the homeowner may be liable. We also look at product liability—manufacturers like Jumpking and Skywalker have documented CPSC recall histories for frame weld failures and net defects.
Why Choose Attorney911 for Your Odessa Case?
Most personal injury firms treat a trampoline case like a simple slip-and-fall. We don’t. We built our practice around the specific physics of trampolines and the specific medicine of pediatric trauma.
- Ralph Manginello brings 25+ years of experience and a track record against multi-national corporations.
- Lupe Peña brings inside knowledge of the insurance industry’s playbook and can speak directly to our Spanish-speaking community.
- We handle rhabdomyolysis and compartment syndrome litigation at a depth other firms cannot match.
- We use digital forensics to recover “missing” surveillance video and “lost” incident reports.
We represent families in City of Odessa because we believe that no business has the right to trade a child’s safety for a margin target. What happened to your child wasn’t random—it was the predictable output of a system that ignored the AAP’s warnings and the industry’s own safety standards.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911) for a free consultation. We answer 24/7. Hablamos Español. No fee unless we win. Our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours. The fight for your child’s future starts with one call.
Additional FAQs for City of Odessa Families
How long do I have to sue a trampoline park in Texas?
Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003, you generally have two years. However, for a minor, the clock is tolled until they turn 18. This means they have until their 20th birthday to file. However, you should never wait. Evidence disappears in weeks, not years. Call an Odessa attorney as soon as the injury occurs.
Is it the park’s fault or my fault for letting my child jump?
Texas uses a “modified 51% bar” for comparative negligence. You can recover as long as you (or your child) were not more than 50% responsible for the accident. In nearly every state, a child under seven is conclusively presumed incapable of negligence. The park is responsible for enforcing ASTM F2970 safety ratios and rules—it is their duty, not yours, to maintain a safe facility.
Can I sue the franchisor if the park is a separate LLC?
Yes. Under the doctrine of apparent agency (established in Texas in Baptist Memorial v. Sampson), if the park uses the franchisor’s logos, uniforms, and website, and a reasonable person would believe they are dealing with the national chain, the franchisor is on the hook. This was proven in the Damion Collins $15.6M arbitration award, where the franchisor absorbed 40% of the fault.
What should I do if my child has dark urine after jumping?
This is a medical emergency. Dark “cola-colored” urine is a hallmark of rhabdomyolysis. Go to an emergency room like Medical Center Hospital immediately and ask for a CK (creatine kinase) test. If the levels are high, your child could be in acute kidney failure. Save all receipts and the wristband from the park—this is critical evidence for our medical experts.
Does it matter which brand of trampoline park we went to?
Yes, for discovery purposes. Sky Zone, DEFY, and Rockin’ Jump are all owned by Sky Zone, Inc. Urban Air is owned by Unleashed Brands. Each has a different history of incident reporting and different “glitches” in their surveillance systems. We subpoena chain-wide patterns to prove the park knew about the danger before your child was hurt.
What if I didn’t sign the waiver, but my relative did?
Only a legal guardian or parent has the authority to sign for a minor under Texas Family Code § 153.073. If an aunt, grandparent, or family friend signed at a birthday party, the waiver is likely void.
What happens if the trampoline park’s surveillance video is missing?
When a park’s video glitches on four cameras at once at the exact moment of an injury, we call that a “Mathew Knight” problem. In Georgia, a jury awarded $3.5 million because they didn’t believe the video “just happened” to glitch. We retain forensic examiners to image the DVR and find out who deleted the footage.
Is the foam pit at the trampoline park really safe for my kid?
The American Journal of Roentgenology’s 2024 paper “Pediatric Trampoline Injuries Head to Toe” notes that foam pits are high-risk zones. The industry’s own shift to airbags is an admission that pits often compact and fail to decelerate children safely. If your child was hurt in a pit, the focus is on the foam-rotation logs and depth measurements.
Why is the trampoline park insurer offering us money so fast?
Because they know your case is worth much more than they are offering. They want you to sign a release before you realize your child has a growth plate injury or a TBI. Our advice client Chad Harris gives is: “You are FAMILY to them.” We fight to make sure you get every dime your child deserves, not just what the adjuster wants to pay to close the file.
Specialized Medical and Legal Research for City of Odessa
Major Pediatric Trauma Centers Serving City of Odessa:
Catastrophic injuries in the Permian Basin often require transfer to specialized Level 1 pediatric trauma centers. We coordinate with specialists at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth or Children’s Medical Center Dallas, as these facilities serve as the benchmarks for care for West Texas families. The standard of care at these named facilities is the benchmark against which your child’s treatment and future needs will be measured.
Local Climate and Weather Event History:
The high heat and UV index in City of Odessa (often reaching 100°F+ with a UV index of 10+) means that any outdoor trampoline netting is subject to rapid degradation. A backyard trampoline that survived a West Texas windstorm or the extreme heat of last July likely has micro-fractures in the frame welds and weakened polypropylene fibers in the mat. We use this local data to prove that homeowners and manufacturers had notice of the failure risk.
Major Interstates and Highways:
Trampoline parks in the Permian Basin typically cluster along the TX-191 corridor between Odessa and Midland or near I-20. These high-trafficked areas see thousands of families driving from surrounding areas like Gardendale and Goldsmith every weekend. We understand the traffic patterns and the EMS response routes that matter when timing is critical for a cervical spine or brain injury.
Attorney911 is Texas-based with national reach. We handle cases in City of Odessa with the same aggressive discovery and expert-panel resources we bring to every Houston or Austin case. The 50-state map of trampoline law sits at our desks, but West Texas is our home territory.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Zero upfront costs. Your child deserves the firm that built the playbook.
