“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.”
Those words, spoken to ABC News by Kaitlin “Kati” Hill, a mother whose three-year-old son Colton suffered a broken femur at a trampoline park, haunt every parent who has lived through a Saturday afternoon in the trauma bay. For families here in the City of Riesel, that scream is the sound of a life changing in two seconds. It is the sound of the “worst miracle”—the moment a child is launched by physics they cannot control into a future of surgeries, body casts, and physical therapy.
We are The Manginello Law Firm—Attorney911. We represent families in the City of Riesel and throughout McLennan County whose lives have been upended by the commercial trampoline industry and defective backyard equipment. We wrote this guide because the “worst scream” isn’t an accident. It is the predictable output of a business model that puts margin ahead of minors. If your child is in a hospital bed right now, or if you are dealing with a permanent disability after a bad landing, you need more than a “personal injury lawyer.” You need an attorney who can quote ASTM F2970 Section 10 from memory, who knows that your child was injured because the park operated at 50% of the required attendant ratio, and who has spent 25+ years making multi-billion-dollar corporations pay for their choices.
Why the City of Riesel Calls us After a Trampoline Injury
The City of Riesel is a tight-knit community. Most of our families here know that when you head north on Highway 6 or get onto I-35 toward the bigger parks in Waco or Temple, you are entering a high-traffic, high-intensity environment. You might be heading to the Urban Air in Waco or the Xtreme Jump in Temple—which, at 60,000 square feet, is the largest specialty jump facility in Central Texas. You sign the waiver on the iPad because the line is long and the kids are excited. You hand them the grip socks. You hand over your credit card.
In that moment, you believe the park has done its job. You believe the foam pit is deep enough, the court monitors are trained, and the equipment is safe. But here is the reality we uncover in discovery: that iPad waiver was drafted by corporate lawyers who know it is likely unenforceable in a Central Texas courtroom, but they count on you not knowing that.
We are built for this fight. Our founder, Ralph Manginello, has been litigating catastrophic injury cases since 1998. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and has gone toe-to-toe with Fortune 500 defendants like BP, Walmart, and Amazon. Our associate attorney, Lupe Peña, provides an edge most firms lack: he used to defend insurance companies and recreational businesses against injury claims. He literally knows the “other side’s” playbook because he helped write it. Now, he uses that knowledge to dismantle their defenses for families in the City of Riesel.
One Jump, One Bad Landing, One Life Changed
One bounce. One landing. One broken neck. That is the timeline of a trampoline injury. In Harris County, Texas, a jury awarded $11.485 million—including $6 million in punitive damages—against the operator of Cosmic Jump after a 16-year-old fell through a torn trampoline slide onto a concrete floor. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and a skull fracture. The waiver was signed. The jury found gross negligence anyway.
At the City of Riesel, we don’t accept the park’s excuses. We don’t accept the “it was a freak accident” narrative. We look at the data. We look at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy, which has warned against recreational trampoline use since 1999. We look at the industry’s own self-written standard, ASTM F2970. We know that when a child under six is allowed onto a court with teenagers, the park is violating the rules it claims to follow.
If you are a Spanish-speaking family in the City of Riesel, you deserve to speak to your lawyer directly. Lupe Peña habla con usted directamente—sin intérpretes. Muchas familias en McLennan County terminan firmando documentos que no entienden bajo presión en la entrada del parque. El caso Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela dice que un contrato puede ser inválido si usted no pudo leerlo. Nosotros usamos esa ley para pelear por su familia.
The Science of the “Double-Bounce” Disaster
If you’ve spent any time at the parks near the City of Riesel, you’ve seen the “double-bounce.” It happens when a heavier jumper—an adult or a teenager—lands on the trampoline bed just as a smaller child is about to push off. The physics are brutal. The energy transfer from the heavier jumper can multiply the child’s launch force by up to 4x.
The child isn’t jumping anymore; they are being launched like a projectile. When they land, their developing bones cannot absorb the impact. This is the mechanism that shatters femurs and destroys growth plates. According to the Teague et al. study published in Pediatrics in January 2024, high-performance jumping produces an injury rate of 2.11 per 1,000 jumper-hours. For families in Riesel, those aren’t just numbers. They are the reason your child might never play high school football or run track.
The Waiver is Noise, Not a Wall
The trampoline park hopes you believe that the waiver ended your case before it started. They hope you think that because you tapped “I Agree” on a kiosk, you signed away your child’s future.
They are wrong.
In Texas, the law is clear: a parent cannot bind a minor child to a pre-injury waiver of their personal injury claims. We cite Munoz v. II Jaz, Inc. in our sleep. Your child has their own right to be whole, and you cannot sign that right away at a birthday party in Waco. Furthermore, Texas has a “fair notice” doctrine. If the waiver wasn’t conspicuous—if the important parts were hidden in small print—it doesn’t count. And as the Cosmic Jump verdict proved, no waiver in Texas can protect a business from its own gross negligence.
The 7-Day Evidence Clock
When an injury happens at a park near the City of Riesel, the evidence starts vanishing immediately. Surveillance DVR systems are often set to overwrite every 7, 14, or 30 days. The incident report you filled out might be “revised” by a corporate risk manager 48 hours later. The court monitor who wasn’t watching your child might quit or be transferred.
We don’t wait. When you call 1-888-ATTY-911, our preservation team moves. We send a formal spoliation letter within 24 hours of being hired. We demand the DVR hard drive. We demand the training records. We demand the metadata of the incident report. We freeze the scene so the park cannot hide what happened.
Catastrophic Injuries We Handle in the City of Riesel
We represent families whose children have suffered:
- Salter-Harris Growth Plate Fractures: These are injuries to the cartilage at the ends of long bones. If they aren’t managed correctly, the bone may stop growing or grow crooked.
- SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality): This is a pediatric-specific disaster where the spinal cord is stretched or crushed but the bones look fine on an X-ray. By the time the symptoms show up, it can be too late.
- Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI): From skull fractures on unpadded concrete to diffuse axonal injury from a failed flip.
- Exertional Rhabdomyolysis: We currently litigate a $10 million lawsuit involving rhabdo. We know this pathology intimately. It happens when a child jumps for 90 minutes straight in a hot park without water, causing muscle breakdown that shuts down the kidneys.
Liability: Who Pays for a Riesel Trampoline Injury?
The money is always upstream. While the local park LLC might have a $1 million policy, we look for the umbrella layers. We look for the franchisor—Urban Air, Sky Zone, or Altitude. We look for the parent companies like Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly CircusTrix) and Unleashed Brands. We look for the private equity sponsors like Palladium Equity Partners and Seidler Equity Partners who make the cost-cutting decisions that lead to understaffed courts.
We have gone toe-to-toe with the biggest corporate defense firms in the world. We aren’t intimidated by a park’s fleet of lawyers. We know that behind every “unfortunate accident” is a business decision to save money on staff training or equipment maintenance.
Case-Build: Our 10-Step Protocol
- Immediate Spoliation Letter: We demand every camera angle within 24 hours.
- Biomechanical Reconstruction: We hire engineers to prove how the physics caused the break.
- Medical Chronology: We map every minute of your child’s treatment at Riesel or Waco-area hospitals.
- Waiver Analysis: Our former defense attorney finds the holes in their contract.
- Corporate Structure Discovery: We find the parent company and the real insurance money.
- ASTM Compliance Audit: We measure the park’s failures against national standards.
- Witness Canvass: We find the other parents who saw the attendant on their phone.
- Internal Memo Subpoena: We look for the emails that prove they knew the equipment was failing.
- Life Care Planning: We calculate the cost of your child’s care for the next 50 years.
- Trial Readiness: We prepare to tell your child’s story to a McLennan County jury.
The Reality of Backyard Trampolines in Riesel
While the commercial parks draw the most lawsuits, many children in the City of Riesel are injured in their own backyards. Texas climate—the intense heat and freezing cycles—destroys trampoline netting and padding faster than manufacturers tell you.
If your child was hurt on a Jumpking, Skywalker, or Springfree trampoline, we look for manufacturing and design defects. We look at CPSC recall history. We also handle “attractive nuisance” cases—situations where a neighborhood child wandered onto a property in Riesel because of an un-fenced trampoline and suffered a life-altering injury.
Frequently Asked Questions (Riesel/McLennan County Focus)
Can I sue if I signed a waiver at the trampoline park in Waco?
Yes. As we’ve detailed, under Texas law (specifically Munoz v. II Jaz), you cannot sign away your minor child’s legal rights. Furthermore, if the park was grossly negligent—such as ignoring a known equipment tear or failing to staff courts—the waiver won’t protect them. At Attorney911, we investigate the specific circumstances of your Riesel family’s case to find the winning attack vector.
My child’s leg is broken, but they say it’s just a “normal” break. Why is growth plate damage different?
In an adult, a broken leg is a healing event. In a child in the City of Riesel, a break through the growth plate (a Salter-Harris fracture) can be a decade-long medical journey. If that growth plate is damaged, the limb may not grow correctly, leading to permanent deformity. We retain pediatric orthopedic experts to project these lifetime costs before you settle for a ” handsome check” that won’t cover his future surgeries.
Is the Urban Air franchisor responsible, or just the local owner?
Under the doctrine of apparent agency, we often hold the national franchisor responsible. If the park looks like an Urban Air, says it’s an Urban Air, and uses Urban Air’s rules, the franchisor has an obligation to ensure those rules are followed. The Damion Collins v. Urban Air Overland Park $15.6 million award proves that the franchisor (UATP Management LLC) can and will be held accountable.
How much is my Riesel trampoline injury case worth?
Every case depends on the medicine and the liability. However, national verdicts for catastrophic spinal injuries range between $2 million and $15 million. In cases involving gross negligence, like the Cosmic Jump TBI case here in Texas, juries have awarded over $11 million. We don’t settle for the “primary layer” if your child’s life is worth more.
Why won’t the park give me the incident report?
They aren’t required to hand it over until a lawsuit is filed—and they know it. But we know how to get it. We subpoena the original version, not the sanitized “final” version their corporate lawyers edited. If they’ve “lost” it, we pursue spoliation sanctions.
Does it cost anything to hire Attorney911?
No. We work on a 100% contingency fee basis. We advance all costs for the biomechanical engineers, the trauma surgeons, and the digital forensic experts. If we don’t recover money for your family in the City of Riesel, you don’t owe us a cent.
What should I say to the insurance adjuster who just called?
Nothing. The “friendly adjuster call” is a trap designed to get you to say something that suggests your child was “horseplaying” or you weren’t watching. Every “I guess” or “I think” you say will be used against you in a Riesel courtroom. Tell them you are represented by Attorney911 and give them our number: 1-888-ATTY-911.
How long do we have to sue in Texas?
The standard statute of limitations is 2 years. For a minor in the City of Riesel, the time is tolled until they turn 18, but wait even six months and the surveillance video is gone forever. You need to act now while the evidence still exists.
The Manginello Law Firm: Built for the City of Riesel
We are not a volume firm. We are a catastrophic injury firm. When child-labor violations surface—like the Sky Zone Tukwila $68,000 fine in 2025—it proves a corporate culture that disregards the law. We use that pattern of practice to build your case.
We represent the families driving down Highway 6 who just wanted a fun afternoon. We represent the parents in the City of Riesel who are realizing that “we had no idea” is the most dangerous phrase in the parent vocabulary.
You signed the waiver because the line was long. You let your child jump because you wanted them to laugh. None of that is your fault. The park collected your money and accepted the duty under ASTM F2970. The park failed. That’s not your fault. That’s our case.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Our Texas offices—Houston, Austin, and Beaumont—serve the City of Riesel and families across the country. No fee unless we win. The clock is running. Let’s get started.
