“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 who watched her three-year-old son Colton suffer a broken femur at a trampoline park. Her warning, shared over 240,000 times on social media, echoes what we hear every week at our firm. She ended her message with five words that define the tragedy of the indoor jump industry: “We had no idea.”
If you are reading this in Crowley, at your child’s bedside at Cook Children’s Medical Center or at home as you juggle follow-up appointments and mounting medical bills, you likely feel the same way. You were at the Urban Air on West Mansfield Highway or the Ninja Kidz Action Park right here on East Main Street. You signed the electronic waiver at the kiosk because the line was long and the staff was pressuring you to move quickly so the kids could jump. You believed that “industry safety standards” meant your child was protected.
The truth is much darker. A trampoline injury is never an accident—it is the predictable output of a business decision.
For over 25 years, Ralph Manginello and our team at Attorney911 have stood for families against multinational corporations. We’ve gone head-to-head with entities as massive as BP after the Texas City refinery explosion and litigated against Amazon, Walmart, and FedEx. We bring that same Fortune 500 battle experience to the trampoline industry. We understand the corporate architecture of chains like Sky Zone, Inc. (backed by Palladium Equity Partners) and Unleashed Brands (the Seidler Equity-backed parent of Urban Air).
We handle these cases with the urgency they require. Park surveillance video is often overwritten in as little as 7 to 30 days. Incident reports are frequently “revised” by management to shift blame onto the victim. Your child’s case isn’t decided in the courtroom two years from now; it is decided by the evidence we preserve in the next 48 hours.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today. We are based in Texas, with offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, but we lead a national practice. Our team includes Lupe Peña, an attorney who previously defended insurance companies and recreational businesses against the very claims we now file. He knows their playbook because he helped write it. Now, he uses that insider knowledge to dismantle their defenses and void their waivers.
The Reality of Trampoline Park Safety in Crowley and Tarrant County
Crowley is a community built on families, youth sports, and competitive spirit. Between the DFW elite cheer culture and the high-intensity training at local ninja gyms, our children spend more time airborne than almost any other generation. But the facilities they use—whether it’s the Sky Zone in Hurst or the Altitude in Fort Worth—operate in a regulatory vacuum.
In the United States, there is no federal agency that inspects trampoline parks. While the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) tracks injuries, they have no power to shut down a dangerous court or mandate staffing ratios. Instead, we rely on ASTM F2970, a voluntary standard written by the trampoline park industry itself.
Even this voluntary “floor” is treated as a ceiling by corporations looking to maximize their margins. In Washington State, the Department of Labor (L&I) recently cited Sky Zone locations in Tukwila and Vancouver for child labor violations and safety lapses, including situations where untrained teens were performing maintenance on ziplines 12 feet in the air without fall protection. That same corporate culture is present in Tarrant County.
Industry-wide patterns show that understaffing is the norm, not the exception. The International Organization for Standardization published EN ISO 23659:2022, a mandatory European safety standard that far exceeds the voluntary rules used in the U.S. While Europe mandates strict construction and operation, companies like Sky Zone and Urban Air in Texas operate with a standard that allows a 200-pound adult and a 50-pound child to share the same court—a decision that leads directly to the catastrophic double-bounce.
The Physics of the Double-Bounce: Why One Jump Changes Everything
The “double-bounce” is the signature injury mechanism of the commercial trampoline park. When a heavier jumper lands on a trampoline bed at the same time a lighter jumper—your child—is pushing off, the energy transfer is explosive. The trampoline bed acts as a catapult, multiplying the child’s launch force by up to 4x.
The child isn’t jumping anymore; they are being thrown.
The physics of this energy transfer are documented in peer-reviewed studies like Eager (2012) and Teague (published in Pediatrics, 2024). Teague’s study, which followed 13,256 injuries over 8.4 million jumper-hours, found that significant injuries happen at a rate of 1.14 per 1,000 jumper-hours. For foam pits and airbags, that rate jumps to 1.91.
A Crowley family doesn’t need a physics degree to understand what happens next. The child lands off-axis. Their developing bones, which are more pliable but have vulnerable growth plates (physes), cannot absorb the impact. The result is often a Salter-Harris fracture—a break through the growth plate that can lead to permanent limb-length discrepancy or angular deformity if not managed by a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who specializes in growth arrest.
Most personal injury firms in Tarrant County will call this a “broken leg.” We don’t. We know that a Salter-Harris Type III fracture at age nine means ten years of orthopedic monitoring and the potential for corrective osteotomy at age fourteen. That isn’t just a medical bill; it is a life-altering event.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We speak the language of the medicine and the law. Hablamos Español. Our firm advance all expert costs, from biomechanical engineers to life-care planners, and you pay nothing unless we recover for you.
Your Waiver is Not a Wall: How We Dismantle the Park’s Primary Defense
The number one reason parents hesitate to call an attorney after a trampoline injury is the iPad waiver they signed at the front desk. The park’s insurance adjuster will tell you that the paper you signed ends your case. They are wrong.
In Texas, waivers are subject to the “fair notice” doctrine and the express negligence rule established in Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum. For a waiver to be enforceable, it must be conspicuous—the text must attract the attention of a reasonable person—and it must explicitly use the word “negligence.” A legal release buried in twenty screens of digital text often fails the Texas conspicuousness test.
Furthermore, the landmark ruling in Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. established that a parent in Texas cannot sign away a minor child’s personal cause of action. While the Texas Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Cerna v. Pearland Urban Air allowed parks to enforce certain delegation clauses regarding arbitration, it did not grant them immunity from gross negligence.
Gross negligence in Texas, under the Moriel standard, means the park was subjectively aware of an extreme risk and proceeded with conscious indifference. When we find evidence of torn trampoline beds, understaffed courts, or a manager who explicitly told staff not to call 911—as was reported in a public review of an Urban Air in Southlake—the waiver evaporates.
In Harris County, a jury awarded $11.485 million against Cosmic Jump after a teenager fell through a torn slide onto concrete. The jury found gross negligence. They looked past the waiver and saw the business decision to keep a defective attraction open. We bring that same investigative depth to Crowley. One of our attorneys, Lupe Peña, has a unique edge: he used to represent the insurance companies. He knows exactly where their waivers are thin and where their “standard operating procedures” are a lie.
The Hidden Danger: Rhabdomyolysis and the High Cost of Extended Jumping
Trampoline parks are hot, humid, and overstimulating. Many locations, like the House of Air in Crowley, sell sessions that last 90 minutes or two hours. For a child who is dehydrated on a North Texas summer afternoon, this level of exertion can lead to a condition called rhabdomyolysis.
Rhabdo is the breakdown of muscle tissue that releases a protein called myoglobin into the bloodstream. If not treated quickly at a facility like Cook Children’s, it can lead to acute kidney failure and permanent organ damage. Symptoms often don’t appear until 12 to 48 hours after the jump:
- Cola-colored or dark brown urine
- Extreme muscle pain and swelling
- Vomiting and confusion
We are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston and a fraternity involving rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure. We recognize the medical markers. We know the experts who can testify to the link between the park’s failure to provide rest breaks and your child’s kidney injury. While most firms would miss the connection, we treat rhabdo with the same level of technical care as a spinal cord injury.
If your child arrived at an ER in Fort Worth with unexplained muscle pain or “cola urine” after a Saturday at a jump park, call us at 888-ATTY-911. The clock is running on the medical evidence.
The Attorney911 Difference: Why We Litigate Differently
Most personal injury firms treat a trampoline case like a slip-and-fall. They send a letter, wait for a low-ball offer, and settle for the primary policy limits. We don’t. We built our practice to pierce the corporate stack.
- Immediate Spoliation Letters: Within 24 hours of your call, we send a certified legal demand to the park, the franchisee, and the franchisor. We demand the preservation of DVR footage, the kiosk audit logs, and the original incident reports before they are “finalized” by corporate risk management.
- Biomechanical Reconstruction: We don’t just say your child was hurt. We retain experts to model the energy transfer of the double-bounce or the failure of the auto-belay on a climbing wall to prove the mechanism was foreseeable and preventable.
- Corporate Archaeology: We trace the money from the local Crowley LLC to the national brand. If the local park only has a $1 million policy, we look for the umbrella layers at the franchisor level and the private equity sponsor behind the scenes.
- Language Access Justice: If your primary language is Spanish and you were pressured to sign an English-only waiver, the Delfingen doctrine may allow us to strike that waiver entirely. Lupe Peña represents our Hablamos Español clients directly—no interpreters, no delays.
“You are NOT just some client,” as our client Chad Harris said. “You are FAMILY to them.” We represent the families of Crowley because we live here, we work here, and we jump here. We know the roads like FM 1187 and Crowley Seventh Avenue, and we know exactly which corporations are responsible for the hazards in our backyard.
The Injury Catalog: From Foam Pits to Spinal Cord Strokes
The 2024 American Journal of Roentgenology paper “Pediatric Trampoline Injuries Head to Toe” notes that up to 1.6% of all pediatric emergency department trauma is now trampoline-related. The injury spectrum we handle includes:
The “Trampoline Fracture”
This is a proximal tibial metaphyseal buckle fracture common in children under six. It happens when a toddler’s small bone is subjected to the upward force of a trampoline bed while they are in the wrong phase of a jump. This is why the AAP states children under six should never be on a trampoline.
SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality)
This is a terrifying pediatric condition where the child’s flexible spine allows for a cord injury despite a normal-looking CT scan. A head-first entry into a compacted foam pit—where the cubes haven’t been replaced in months—can lead to permanent paralysis that the ER may miss in the first four hours.
Vertebral Artery Dissection and Stroke
The Elle Yona case, which went viral with over 27 million views, highlights how a backflip into a foam pit can tear the vertebral artery, leading to a spinal cord infarction or stroke. If your teen was told they were having a “panic attack” after a backflip but had sudden back pain and limb weakness, they may be a victim of this specific, documented mechanism.
Climbing Wall and Zipline Falls
As parks become “Adventure Centers,” we see more harness failures. In Sugar Land, the Ispahani family described a 30-foot fall to concrete because the harness wasn’t attached. At Altitude Gastonia, Matthew Lu was killed when his harness failed. These aren’t trampoline risks; they are engineering and staffing failures.
Frequently Asked Questions for Crowley Parents
What should I do if the park manager tells me the video is “unavailable”?
In litigation, we treat “unavailable” as a signal for spoliation discovery. We demand the DVR hardware, the access logs, and an affidavit from the IT administrator. If a park’s surveillance “glitches” on four cameras at the exact moment of injury—a pattern seen in the Mathew Knight $3.5M Georgia verdict—we ask the jury for an adverse inference.
Can I sue if my neighbor’s child was hurt on our backyard trampoline?
Yes, under the attractive nuisance doctrine. Texas law holds that if you have a hazardous condition (like a trampoline) that is likely to attract children who cannot appreciate the danger, you can be liable for their injuries even if they were trespassing. Most homeowners’ policies exclude trampolines, but we investigate whether your umbrella policy or the manufacturer’s product liability coverage can resolve the claim.
How much is my child’s growth plate injury worth?
A Salter-Harris fracture at age eight is not a one-time settlement. It is a decades-long medical journey. Based on national industry data and our firm’s life-care planning architecture, these cases typically anchor in the $500,000 to $2,000,000 range. We forecast the surgical corrections, the gait complications, and the impact on the child’s future earning capacity.
Who is really responsible if the park is a franchise?
The franchisor (like Urban Air Franchise Holdings) often retains control over the training curriculum and the operations manual. The Kansas arbitration award of $15.6M for Damion Collins held the franchisor responsible for 40% of the award because of “systemic failure” to implement safety changes. We go after the deep pockets, not just the local operator.
What if I can’t afford the experts needed to fight Sky Zone or Urban Air?
You don’t need to. Attorney911 works on a contingency fee. We advance every dollar for the biomechanists, the pediatric neurologists, and the digital forensic examiners. We take the financial risk so your child’s recovery fund stays intact. No fee unless we win.
The Evidence Clock: Why the Next 7 Days are Critical
Most families wait for the cast to come off before they call a lawyer. By then, the case is already compromised.
- The DVR Overwrites: Tarrant County parks often have 7-day or 14-day DVR cycles. If we don’t send a spoliation letter this week, the footage of the attendant on his phone is gone forever.
- The Attendant Transfers: Minimum-wage “court monitors” have 150% annual turnover. Within a month, the teenager who saw the double-bounce may no longer work at the Crowley facility.
- The Waiver Purge: Some kiosk systems purge version history on a 72-hour rolling cycle. We need the forensic metadata to prove what screen you actually saw.
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.” We take the difficult cases that other firms decline because they are afraid of the waiver. With Lupe Peña’s defense background and Ralph’s 25 years of trial experience, we know how to unlock the insurance towers most firms never find.
The System Was Never Safe
The American Academy of Pediatrics has been warning against trampoline use since 1999. In November 2022, the International Organization for Standardization published EN ISO 23659:2022 to protect children across the globe. Yet here in Texas, your family jumps under a voluntary standard written by the very companies that profit when they cut staffing costs.
What happened to your child wasn’t bad luck. It was the predictable output of a corporate system that put margin ahead of safety. We are here to name those decisions, hold those decision-makers accountable, and recover the compensation your child needs for the next seventy years of their life.
Attorney911 is built for this fight. We currently litigate a $10 million lawsuit for rhabdomyolysis. We have defeated waivers in Harris County. We have sued BP, Walmart, and Amazon. We handle cases in Crowley, Tarrant County, and nationwide.
Your child’s case is decided by what gets preserved this week. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 now. Hablamos Español. Our consultation is free, confidential, and available 24/7. No fee unless we win.
Crowley Area Resource Summary
- Primary Pediatric Trauma Center: Cook Children’s Medical Center (Fort Worth)
- Local High-Risk Facilities: Ninja Kidz Action Park (Crowley), Urban Air Mansfield, Altitude Fort Worth.
- Major Corridors: I-35W to Mansfield Hwy (parks cluster here).
- Texas SOL: 2 years (usually tolled for minors).
- Attorney911 Offices: Houston, Austin, Beaumont.
Don’t let a piece of paper you signed at a kiosk stop you from obtaining justice for your child. The waiver is noise. Your child’s recovery is the only thing that matters.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911).
Investigating the Corporate Stack: Who Owns the Risk?
When you walk into the Ninja Kidz Action Park on East Main Street, you likely aren’t thinking about private equity sponsors or corporate acquisition timelines. But we are.
The industry changed materially in 2023. Sky Zone, Inc. was renamed from CircusTrix LLC on January 1, 2023. It sits under the continuous control of Palladium Equity Partners, who recently announced a $450 million continuation fund. This signals sustained, high-level control over the cost-cutting and operational decisions that lead to injury. On the other side of the market, Unleashed Brands—the parent of Urban Air—was acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in February 2023. At the time of the deal, Franchise Times published the headline: “Seidler Equity Buys Unleashed Brands AMID LAWSUITS Aimed at Kid-Focused Franchisor.”
Our firm traces the money and the control. We pull the Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDD) and hunt for the Item 3 litigation history. We want to know how many times the franchisor’s own auditors flagged safety violations that management chose to ignore. We don’t just sue the local Crowley operator; we sue the corporate parent that failed to enforce the standards they wrote.
The Medical-Legal Blueprint: Growth Plates and Long-Tail Recovery
Parents often ask us why the settlement values for trampoline injuries are so high. The answer is found in the medicine of childhood development.
A Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia—the most common pediatric trampoline fracture—is not just a temporary disability. Because the fracture extends through the growth plate (physis), the bone may stop growing or grow at an angle. To an insurance adjuster, this is a “closed fracture.” To our experts, it is a decade of monitoring, potential epiphysiodesis of the opposite leg to equalize length, and a lifetime of biomechanical dysfunction that will eventually lead to early-onset osteoarthritis of the ankle and knee.
We build a Pediatric Life-Care Plan (LCP) for every catastrophic case. We retain a life-care planner and a pediatric physiatrist to project every medically necessary cost your child will incur until they are eighty years old. In severe cases of traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury, these plans can reach $15 million to $30 million. When we demand $10 million from an insurer, we aren’t guessing. We are providing a forensic-economic certainty of what it will take to make your child whole.
Language Access: The Delfingen Doctrine in Tarrant County
Texas is 40% Hispanic. In Crowley and across the Fort Worth metro, many families use Spanish as their primary language at home. When these families go to a trampoline park, they are often presented with an English-only iPad waiver and pressured by a teenage attendant to “sign quickly so the kids can jump.”
Delfingen US-Texas, L.P. v. Valenzuela is the Texas case that gives these families a weapon. The court held that a contract can be denied enforcement if the employer (or operator) failed to provide a Spanish translation and the signer lacked English literacy. Furthermore, Texas Family Code § 153.073 states that only a parent or court-appointed conservator has the authority to sign for a child. If a grandmother or an aunt signed the waiver at a birthday party, that waiver is often void before we even reach the merits of the case.
Lupe Peña is our native Spanish speaker. She represents these families directly. We don’t just bridge the language gap; we use the language gap as evidence of procedural unconscionability to strike the park’s main defense.
The “Not Call 911” Pattern
We take notice of the systemic tactics parks use after an injury occurs. Multiple families have reported on review platforms and in deposition that management instructs employees to minimize injuries and discourage 911 calls. The goal is to get the family out of the building and into their car before the severity of the injury is recognized.
Every minute the park delays a 911 call is a minute the surveillance DVR gets closer to overwriting. The “Don’t Call 911” protocol isn’t about customer service; it is about evidence destruction. We treat this as gross negligence from the moment we begin a case. If your park delayed emergency care, you need a firm that knows how to turn that delay into a punitive damages predicate.
Beyond the Park: Backyard Liability and Attractive Nuisance
Backyard trampolines—manufactured by Jumpking, Skywalker, and Bouncepro—cause tens of thousands of ER visits in Texas every year. If your neighbor’s trampoline was accessible through an unlocked gate or lacked a safety enclosure, and your child was hurt while wandering over, the law of attractive nuisance applies.
Homeowners’ insurance carriers like State Farm often exclude trampoline injuries, but we look deeper. We examine the manufacturer’s Instructions for Use (IFUs) and cross-reference them with CPSC recall data. The 2019 Super Jumper recall for frame-weld breakage and the 2026 SEGMART toddler trampoline recall for strangulation hazards are just two examples of why the product manufacturer is often the correct defendant.
We apply a strict product-liability framework. Whether it is a design defect (risk-utility analysis) or a manufacturing defect (broken weld), we hold the manufacturers accountable for selling products they knew were unsafe for the pediatric population.
Case Construction: The 10-Step case-Build
When you retain Attorney911, we execute a high-intensity litigation playbook:
- 24-Hour Spoliation Letter: Certified demand to freeze video, logs, and metadata.
- 48-Hour PI Deployment: We send a private investigator to the Crowley facility to document current conditions and witness assignment.
- Waiver Version Archaeology: We use the Wayback Machine and forensic tools to capture exactly what was on the kiosk screen the day you signed.
- Medical Chronology: Our specialists process every page from Cook Children’s or Texas Children’s to build the damages timeline.
- Corporate Piercing: We pull the FDD Item 3 disclosures to see the chain’s history of identical injuries.
- ASTM Compliance Audit: We measure the foam pit and padding against the industry spec.
- Witness Network Outreach: We find the former monitors who quit after your child’s injury and subpoena them for the truth.
- Biomechanical Modeling: We prove how the physics of the court failed your child.
- Life-Care Plan Preparation: We quantify the next seventy years of medical necessity.
- Trial Readiness: We prepare for a jury from day one. Preparation pressure is the only thing that drives multi-million dollar settlements.
Why Time is the Enemy
In Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee, the statute of limitations is only one year. In Florida, it was recently cut to two years. In Texas, you have two years—but for your child, that deadline is delayed. However, as any Crowley parent who has tried to find a specific parking receipt or a specific store employee three months later knows, memories fade and data disappears.
If you wait, the park wins. By Day 30, the attendant who didn’t call 911 is working at a different job. By Day 60, the torn mat has been replaced. By Day 90, the DVR has reset four times.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 now. Hablamos Español. Our Managing Partner Ralph Manginello is a 25-year veteran of federal and state courts. Associate Attorney Lupe Peña brings the insurance-defense playbook directly to your side of the table. We advancement all investigation costs. No fee unless we win.
What happened on that trampoline bed was a tragedy. What happens next is a choice. Choose the firm that has spent a quarter-century holding Fortune 500 companies accountable. Choose the firm that treats you like family.
1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). 24/7. Crowley and nationwide.
Frequently Asked Questions (Continued)
Is my child’s headache normal after a trampoline fall?
No. In a developing pediatric brain, even a “mild” concussion can have long-tail consequences. Post-concussive syndrome can cause cognitive fatigue, academic regression, and sleep disturbance for months. Delayed neuropsychological evaluations are the biggest mistake parents make. Get a second opinion from a pediatric neurologist if symptoms persists.
Can we sue if my child was hurt at a birthday party?
Yes. If you were a guest and never signed a waiver, the park has no defense. If the host parent signed for your child, notice of authority usually fails under Texas law. We look at the party contract separately to find the gaps in their shield.
Why is the insurance adjuster offering to pay our deductible?
They are trying to buy a release for $500. This is the Med-Pay Trojan Horse. Once you accept that check or sign that receipt, they will argue you have settled the entire claim. Never sign anything from an insurance company without us reading it first.
What if my child was hurt at a summer camp or school field trip?
These cases involve secondary defendants like school districts or camp operators. Public schools in Tarrant County may have sovereign immunity caps, but we look at whether the park was a third-party vendor with its own independent liability. The AAP specifically advises against trampolines in school PE programs, which is powerful evidence of negligence.
How do we prove the foam pit was too shallow?
We subpoena the pit maintenance logs. Foam blocks compact over time. ASTM F2970 requires a specific fill depth and rotation cadence. If the park hasn’t bought new foam in two years, the pit is a “bottoming-out” hazard that they knew about and failed to fix.
The Final Kill-Shot: It Was Always Foreseeable
Your child’s injury was foreseen on six independent layers. The AAP warned about it in 1999. The industry admitted it by writing ASTM F2970 in 2013 and switching to airbags in 2018. The CPSC documented it through 300,000 annual ER visits. The franchisor warned the operator in their own safety manual. The chain has had prior incidents on the same attraction at other locations. And in discovery, we will find the internal emails showing the decision to cut staffing was based on a revenue target.
That is not an accident. That is a case.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The case starts today.
Attorney911 | The Manginello Law Firm
Houston · Austin · Beaumont · Crowley · Nationwide
No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.
