“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 were the words of Kaitlin “Kati” Hill, describing the moment a trampoline park broke her three-year-old son Colton’s femur. Her warning to other parents has been shared over 240,000 times on social media. We share it today because what happened to Colton is not an isolated incident—it is the predictable output of a trampoline industry that often prioritizes profit margins over the safety of children in Burkburnett and across North Texas.
Imagine a typical Saturday afternoon in Burkburnett. Perhaps you’ve driven down I-44 into Wichita Falls for a birthday party at the local Urban Air or another regional facility because Burkburnett’s quiet residential streets are a perfect place to raise a family, but aren’t always the center of high-energy entertainment. Your child is excited, the music is loud, and you are directed to a row of iPad kiosks to sign a waiver before your child is handed a wristband. You sign it because the line is long and you want them to have fun. You have no reason to suspect that twenty minutes later, your life will change in one bad landing.
At Attorney911, we know exactly what happens next. The “court monitor”—often a 16-year-old making minimum wage—is distracted by their phone or a conversation with a coworker. A 200-pound adult lands on the same trampoline bed as your 50-pound child. The resulting energy transfer, known as a “double-bounce,” multiplies the launch force of your child by up to four times. The child isn’t jumping anymore; they’ve become a projectile. They land off-axis, and you hear the scream Kati Hill described.
If you are reading this from a hospital bedside at a Level 1 pediatric trauma center like the ones serving our region, we have a message for you: This isn’t your fault. The park operator knew about the risks of age-mixing and understaffing. They are governed by industry-authored standards like ASTM F2970 that they likely violated the moment the floor got crowded. We represent families in Burkburnett who are facing these catastrophic outcomes, and we are built for this fight.
Why Burkburnett Families Need Specialized Representation
The trampoline industry relies on a specific set of assumptions to avoid paying for the injuries they cause. They assume you will believe the waiver you signed is a total shield. They assume you don’t know that Texas law, through the landmark Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. decision, generally prevents parents from signing away their minor child’s personal injury rights. They assume you don’t know who actually owns the park or how to find the million-dollar insurance layers hidden upstream.
We don’t make those assumptions. Ralph Manginello brings over 25 years of courtroom experience to every case, including federal court admission and a track record of facing down Fortune 500 giants like BP. Our associate attorney, Lupe Peña, provides a structural edge that most personal injury firms cannot match: he used to work for the insurance companies. He used to defend the same recreational businesses we now sue. He knows exactly which waiver clauses are airtight and which ones are full of holes. Together, we provide Burkburnett families with a defense-insider playbook used for the plaintiff’s advantage.
Whether your child was injured at an indoor adventure park in the Wichita Falls metro area or on a backyard trampoline in a Burkburnett neighborhood, the clock is already running. Evidence at these facilities, specifically surveillance video and waiver kiosks audit trails, can be overwritten or purged in as little as 7 to 30 days. We send spoliation letters within 24 hours of being retained to freeze that evidence in place.
The Reality of Trampoline Park Operations in North Texas
Trampoline parks are no longer just rooms full of trampolines. They have evolved into “Family Entertainment Centers” (FECs) that bolt on increasingly dangerous attractions like Sky Rider ziplines, climbing walls over inadequately padded concrete, and mechanical “Wipe-Out” arms. In Wichita County and across the DFW-Wichita Falls corridor, these parks serve thousands of jumpers every weekend.
The Problem with ASTM F2970 Compliance
ASTM F2970 is the manual the trampoline industry wrote for itself to establish minimum safety floors. It covers everything from attendant-to-jumper ratios and foam pit depth to age-separated jumping zones. When a park in our region operates at half the required staffing level to save on labor costs, they are making a business decision to accept a higher rate of injury.
We pair every mention of these voluntary U.S. standards with the international standard, EN ISO 23659:2022. While Europe mandates strict safety requirements for foam pits and airbags, the U.S. relies on a voluntary regime that many Oklahoma and Texas operators treat as an option rather than a requirement. We don’t accept that. When our firm deposes a park’s operations manager, we often find we know their safety standards better than they do.
The Physics of the Double-Bounce
The most common mechanism of injury in these parks is the double-bounce. Many parents think it’s just a funny part of jumping, but the physics are brutal. When mass-ratio mismatches occur—such as an adult and a small child on the same bed—the energy transfer canMultiply the child’s launch force. This is precisely why ASTM F2970 requires parks to operationalize weight and age separation.
When a park fails at this duty, the results are frequently permanent. We see comminuted femoral shaft fractures and Salter-Harris growth plate injuries in children as young as four and five. These aren’t just “broken legs”; they are injuries that may require a decade of orthopedic monitoring to ensure the leg grows straight.
The Waiver Is Not a Wall: Defeating the “Paper Shield” in Texas
The most important thing a Burkburnett parent can understand is that the paper you signed at the kiosk is not a dead end for your case. Texas courts have repeatedly voided trampoline park waivers for several reasons:
- Gross Negligence: Under the Moriel standard, if a park has subjective awareness of an extreme risk (like unmaintained foam pits or broken springs) and shows conscious indifference, the waiver is void. We look for “smoking gun” evidence in the park’s own inspection logs and prior incident reports.
- Inadequate Conspicuousness: The Dresser fair-notice doctrine in Texas requires that release language be bold, visible, and set apart. Many kiosk waivers that hide the release in a tiny scroll-down box fail this test.
- Minor-Child Enforceability: As established in Munoz v. II Jaz Inc., parents in Texas generally cannot bind their children to pre-injury waivers of the child’s own personal tort claims.
- Bilingual Formation Issues: For our Spanish-speaking families in Burkburnett and the surrounding areas, the Delfingen doctrine provides a pathway to challenge English-only waivers that were signed without a meaningful opportunity to understand the terms. Lupe Peña speaks with our Spanish-speaking clients directly—no interpreters, no delays.
If you’ve been told “you can’t sue because you signed a waiver,” you have been given bad advice. At Attorney911, we run every waiver through a five-vector attack analysis within the first 72 hours of your case.
Catastrophic Pediatric Injuries and Lifetime Damages
Trampoline injuries are unique because of the biology of children. A child’s bone is more pliable than an adult’s, and their growth plates (physes) are the weakest point of the musculoskeletal system.
Salter-Harris Fractures and Growth Arrest
A Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia at age eight is a life-altering event. Because the fracture extends through the growth plate, the bone may stop growing or grow at an angle. This can lead to a limb-length discrepancy that doesn’t fully manifest until the child is fourteen. We don’t just calculate your child’s current ER bills; we work with life-care planners to forecast the next 70 years of medical needs, including potential corrective osteotomies.
SCIWORA: The Invisible Spinal Injury
Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality (SCIWORA) is a pediatric-specific danger. A child can sustain a catastrophic spinal cord injury on a trampoline or in a foam pit, yet their CT scan may look normal in the ER. If a monitor or manager told you your child was “just shaken up” after a head-first landing, and didn’t call 911, they may have extended the window of cord ischemia that leads to permanent paralysis.
The Rhabdomyolysis Bridge
We have a deep understanding of rhabdomyolysis—the breakdown of muscle tissue that can lead to acute kidney failure. Our firm currently litigates a $10 million lawsuit involving rhabdo and institutional accountability. We apply this same medical architecture to extended-jumping cases where children, often in overheated North Texas facilities, jump for 90 minutes or more without adequate hydration breaks, resulting in “cola-colored” urine and systemic organ failure 24 to 48 hours later.
Who Is Really Liable? Piercing the Corporate Shield
When we file a lawsuit for a trampoline injury in the Burkburnett area, we don’t just name the local LLC. We look at the entire 5-layer defendant stack.
The industry has consolidated under major parent conglomerates like Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly CircusTrix LLC), backed by Palladium Equity Partners, and Unleashed Brands (parent of Urban Air), backed by Seidler Equity Partners. These multi-million dollar corporations try to hide behind a franchise structure, claiming “we’re just the brand licensor.”
We know better. We look at the franchise agreements to see how much operational control the franchisor actually retained. We subpoena chain-wide incident reports to prove the park had notice of the defect. If the Urban Air in Southlake or Sugar Land had the same failure as the one your child encountered, that is evidence of a systemic problem, not a “freak accident.”
Immediate Steps for Burkburnett Families Post-Injury
If your child was just injured, what you do in the next 48 hours is critical.
- Get to the ER, not an Urgent Care: Clinics in the Wichita Falls area may not have the pediatric trauma expertise or imaging required for a Salter-Harris fracture or a SCIWORA diagnosis.
- Take Photos of the Scene: If you can go back to the park, photograph the exact spot it happened. Look for torn mat seams or compacted foam blocks.
- Do Not Take the “Friendly Adjuster” Call: The park’s insurance company will call you. They will offer a “Med-Pay” check of a few thousand dollars. This is a Trojan Horse. Signing that check usually releases the park from your entire claim.
- Identify the Monitors: If you can remember what the attendant was doing, or what they looked like, write it down. High turnover means they may not even work there in a month.
- Preserve the Grip Socks and Wristband: These are physical evidence of your presence and the “implied contract” the park formed with you.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. We advance all investigation costs—including biomechanical engineers and pediatric specialists. You pay nothing unless we win.
Frequently Asked Questions for Burkburnett Parents
Can I sue if my child was hurt on a neighbor’s backyard trampoline?
Yes, often under the “attractive nuisance” doctrine. In Texas, if a homeowner has a trampoline that is visible and accessible, and they fail to secure it or supervise, they can be liable for injuries to trespassing or invited children. Most homeowners’ insurance policies in Burkburnett have specific rules or exclusions for trampolines, but we look at every layer, including umbrella policies and manufacturer liability.
How long do I have to file a case in Texas?
The statute of limitations for personal injury is generally two years. For minors, this clock is “tolled” until they turn eighteen, giving them until age twenty. However, you should never wait. By the time a child turns eighteen, the witnesses are gone and the surveillance video is dust. We file early to preserve the case.
Does it matter if I didn’t get an incident report?
The park may have refused to give you one, or even talked you out of filing one. This is a tactic used to minimize their internal records. We don’t need their incident report to prove your case. We use medical records, your testimony, and forensic digital extraction to build the timeline ourselves.
What if my child caused their own injury by doing a flip?
Trampoline parks often market themselves with videos of expert jumpers doing flips, yet their waivers prohibit them. This is what we call influencer-encouraged stunt culture. If the park’s own marketing encouraged the behavior, the “rule violation” defense carries much less weight. Furthermore, kids under seven are often presumed incapable of negligence in a legal sense.
Our Commitment to Burkburnett and North Texas
We handle trampoline cases with the same intensity we brought to BP Texas City refinery litigation and the current $10M University of Houston rhabdo case. We’ve seen what trampoline parks do after a catastrophic injury, and we know how to stop them.
Our founder, Ralph Manginello, has spent over two decades holding multinational corporations accountable. Our associate, Lupe Peña, provides the insider knowledge of insurance defense that lets us anticipate their every move. We are family to our clients, and we fight for your children as if they were our own.
What happened to your child wasn’t random. It was the result of a system that accepts a certain number of broken spines and shattered legs as a cost of doing business. We are the firm that changes that math for the defendants.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today. Hablamos Español. Free Consultation. No fee unless we win.
The Proof: Historical Results and Industry Context
- Cosmic Jump $11.485M Verdict: A Harris County 16-year-old fell through a torn slide onto concrete. Jury found gross negligence despite a waiver.
- Collins v. Urban Air $15.6M Award: An adult quadriplegic case where the arbitrator found a “systemic failure” to provide safety information.
- Altitude Gastonia Admission: The park publicly blamed “human error” and removed the climbing wall after a 12-year-old’s death.
- Teague et al. Pediatrics 2024: Documented injury rates of 1.91 per 1,000 jumper-hours in foam pits.
- The Urban Air “Don’t Call 911” Pattern: Public reports of management discouraging emergency calls to downplay injuries.
Your case is decided by what gets preserved this week. The DVR overwrites, the attendants transfer, and the “revised” incident reports are being drafted as you read this. Don’t give them another day to hide the truth. Call the firm that memorized ASTM F2970 so you don’t have to.
