“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.” For Kaitlin “Kati” Hill, that sound was the end of a normal Saturday and the beginning of a nightmare. Her three-year-old son, Colton, was in a “toddler zone” at a trampoline park—a place parents in City of Gholson are told is built for safety. Instead, it was the site of a broken femur and a body cast that lasted for months. Kati Hill’s warning was shared over 240,000 times on social media. We read it, and we hear that same story from families in McLennan County far too often.
At Attorney911, we believe you need to understand one foundational truth before we look at the law or the medicine: What happened to your child at a trampoline park in City of Gholson was not a “freak accident.” It was the predictable output of a business system designed to maximize jumper throughput while minimizing safety costs. When a park decides to staff a Saturday rush with one sixteen-year-old attendant for every sixty jumpers, they are making a margin decision. When they defer rotating the foam blocks in a pit for six months, they are making a capital expenditure decision.
Injuries in City of Gholson happen because a corporate parent in another state decided that the industry-standard safety floor was a ceiling they didn’t need to reach. Since 1998, Ralph Manginello has been fighting these kinds of institutional decisions. From the BP Texas City refinery litigation to our active $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston regarding rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure, our firm is built to handle catastrophic accountability. We aren’t just personal injury lawyers; we are investigators who know the trampoline industry’s playbook better than their own managers do.
The Reality of Trampoline Injury Data in 2026
If you are reading this while sitting at a bedside at a regional pediatric trauma center, you might think your family is facing a rare tragedy. The data says otherwise. According to the groundbreaking study by Teague et al., published in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ journal Pediatrics in January 2024, trampoline park injury rates are measurable and severe. Their research, which tracked 13,256 injuries across 8.4 million jumper-hours, found that foam pits produce 1.91 injuries per 1,000 jumper-hours. High-performance jumping zones are even more dangerous, at 2.11 per 1,000.
Beyond the rates, the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR 2024) recently noted that up to 1.6% of all pediatric emergency department trauma visits in the United States are now related to trampolines. In a metro area serving City of Gholson, that translates to hundreds of families every year facing orthopedic surgeries, traumatic brain injuries, and permanent spinal cord damage.
The “foreseeability” of these injuries is the cornerstone of our litigation strategy. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has advised against recreational trampoline use since 1999. They reaffirmed this position in 2012 and again in 2019. For over twenty-five years, the medical community has shouted into the wind that these products are unsafe for children. Every park operator in Central Texas, every manufacturer like Jumpking or Skywalker, and every retailer like Walmart or Amazon has been on notice for a quarter-century. They sell the experience anyway.
The Standards They Break: ASTM F2970 and F381
Most generalist law firms in McLennan County have never read ASTM F2970. We have it memorized. ASTM F2970 is the safety standard for commercial trampoline courts—and here is the secret the industry doesn’t want you to know: the trampoline industry wrote it themselves. They established the floor for attendant-to-jumper ratios, age-separated jumping zones, and foam pit depth.
When we investigate an injury in City of Gholson, we look for the specific breach of these rules:
- Attendant Ratios: F2970 requires a minimum number of monitors. If the park was understaffed to save on labor, the “monitor” was a teenager on their phone, not a safety official.
- Age and Weight Mixing: The standard requires keeping differently sized jumpers apart. The physics governing a “double-bounce” are brutal. A 200-pound adult landing as an 80-pound child pushes off multiplies the child’s launch force by up to 4x. This mass-ratio energy transfer is what shatters tibias.
- Foam Pit Maintenance: F2970 specifies depth and foam density. Over time, foam blocks compact. If the pit hasn’t been “fluffed” or refilled, your child hits the concrete floor beneath the foam. This is the mechanism responsible for the $3 million Anthony Seitz settlement in Minnesota and the Ty Thomasson fatality in Phoenix.
- International Standards: While the US uses voluntary ASTM guidelines, Europe has adopted EN ISO 23659:2022, a mandatory safety norm. We use the binding international standard as a benchmark to show City of Gholson juries that local parks are operating below global safety expectations.
For backyard injuries in City of Gholson, the standard is ASTM F381. It prohibits children under 6 from using trampolines. Yet, manufacturers like Jumpking and Bouncepro continue to market to families with toddlers. If your enclosure net failed due to UV degradation or a frame weld snapped, that is a product liability claim. We hold manufacturers accountable for design defects that the AAP warned them about decades ago.
The Corporate Structure: Who We Actually Sue
When you are hurt at a park in City of Gholson, you aren’t just suing a local LLC. We perform “corporate structure archeology” on every case. The industry consolidated in 2023, creating massive targets backed by private equity money:
- Sky Zone, Inc.: Formerly known as CircusTrix LLC, this entity was renamed on January 1, 2023. It is backed by Palladium Equity Partners and operates Sky Zone, DEFY, and Rockin’ Jump. With 2024 systemwide sales reaching $642 million, they have the resources to pay for catastrophic outcomes.
- Unleashed Brands: The parent company of Urban Air, acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in February 2023. Their portfolio includes everything from Sylvan Learning to The Little Gym.
- Altitude Trampoline Park: Parented by ATP Alpha, this chain markets itself as the “fastest-growing” in the world. Rapid growth often leads to inconsistent training—a gap we exploit in discovery.
We go “upstream” to find the money. We name the operator, the franchisee, the franchisor (like UATP Management LLC), and the private equity sponsor. In the landmark Damion Collins v. Urban Air case, a Kansas arbitrator awarded $15.6 million for quadriplegia, holding the franchisor responsible for 40% of the fault because of a “systemic failure” to implement safety changes. That is the architecture of a high-value recovery.
Why Your “Signed Waiver” Is Not a Wall
The first thing the park’s insurance adjuster will tell you is, “You signed a waiver. You have no case.” In City of Gholson and across Texas, that is often a lie.
Our team includes Lupe Peña, an attorney who used to represent these exact insurance companies and recreational businesses. He knows which waiver clauses are common and which ones are full of holes. Under the Texas “fair notice” doctrine described in Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum, a waiver must be conspicuous and expressly mention “negligence.” Many kiosk waivers, rushed through on a tablet at a busy counter, fail this test.
Further, under the Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. standard, Texas courts generally hold that a parent cannot sign away a minor child’s personal cause of action. While the recent Cerna v. Pearland Urban Air (2025) decision on delegation clauses has made arbitration more likely in some cases, it does not end the claim. As the Collins case proved, we can defeat waivers even in arbitration if we show gross negligence.
If your family’s primary language is Spanish and you were presented with an English-only iPad waiver at a City of Gholson park, the Delfingen Doctrine may apply. Texas courts have denied enforcement of agreements where no translation was offered to a non-English-literate signer. Lupe Peña speaks Spanish natively; she handles these “bilingual formation” attacks directly to ensure your family isn’t bullied by a piece of paper you couldn’t read.
Catastrophic Injuries: The Medicine of Trampoline Trauma
A “broken leg” at a trampoline park near City of Gholson is rarely just a broken leg. In pediatric cases, it is often a Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia. This is a growth-plate injury. The fracture line extends through the physis, meaning the bone may not grow correctly for the next decade. If your attorney doesn’t understand life-care planning, they will settle your case for today’s medical bills and leave your child’s future corrective surgeries unpaid.
We are specifically tuned to recognized trauma signatures:
- SCIWORA: Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality. A child can have significant cord ischemia even if a CT scan in a City of Gholson ER looks normal.
- Vertebral Artery Dissection: As seen in the Elle Yona TikTok case that went viral in 2024, a backflip can tear the artery in the neck, causing a “spinal-cord stroke.” These are often misdiagnosed as panic attacks.
- Exertional Rhabdomyolysis: If your child jumps for 90 minutes in a hot indoor park and arrives at the ER with dark, “cola-colored” urine, they are in acute kidney failure. Our firm’s $10 million UH hazing case gives us the medical litigation architecture to win these rhabdo cases.
- Post-Splenectomy OPSI: If a blunt impact requires the removal of the spleen, your child faces a lifetime risk of overwhelming infection. We calculate that lifetime risk in our damages demands.
How We Build Your Case in City of Gholson
The moment you retain us, the clock starts. Park surveillance video is typically overwritten in as little as 7 to 30 days. Incident reports on digital systems like those used by Sky Zone or Urban Air are often “revised” by regional managers 48 hours after an injury to scrub admissions of fault.
Our 48-hour evidence preservation protocol includes:
- Immediate Spoliation Letter: We demand the DVR hard drive and audit logs to see who viewed the footage.
- Digital Forensics: If the park says the video “glitched,” we use tools like Magnet AXIOM to find out who deleted it. A Georgia jury recently awarded $3.5 million to Mathew Knight when a park’s cameras “glitched” on four angles simultaneously.
- Ex-Employee Outreach: We find the attendants who were working that Saturday and have since quit. They are often willing to testify about the understaffing and training gaps that the corporate office tries to hide.
- Expert Retention: We advance the costs for biomechanical engineers to reconstruct the double-bounce and life-care planners to forecast the costs of a Salter-Harris growth arrest.
Frequently Asked Questions for City of Gholson Families
Can I sue if I signed the iPad waiver?
Yes. In Texas, waivers do not cover gross negligence. If the park knew of a hazard—like the torn slide in the $11.485M Cosmic Jump case—and didn’t fix it, the waiver fails. Moreover, your signature generally doesn’t bind your child’s independent right to recovery.
They offered me a refund and a free jump pass. Should I take it?
Never sign anything at the park after an injury. Those “refund” forms often contain “satisfaction of claim” language that adjusters will use to try and close your file for thirty dollars.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit in Texas?
The standard statute of limitations is two years. For minors, the clock is tolled until they turn 18, giving them until age 20. But the evidence clock is much shorter. If you wait more than 30 days, the video of the incident is likely gone forever.
Who pays for the medical bills?
We look at every insurance layer. The local park likely has a $1M primary policy, but we go after the franchisor’s umbrella and the corporate parent’s excess layers, which can reach $25M to $100M. We also look at manufacturer product-liability policies for Jumpking or Springfree equipment.
Does it cost anything to start?
No. We work on a 33.33% to 40% contingency fee. We advance every dollar of the investigation and expert fees. If we don’t win, you owe us nothing. Your child’s recovery fund stays untouched.
The Inevitability of Accountability
What happened to your child in City of Gholson wasn’t an accident. It was the result of an industry that has operated in a regulatory vacuum for decades. The AAP has been warning about this since 1999. ASTM F2970 is the industry’s own admission of what safety requires—an admission they violate every time they prioritize throughput over ratios.
Attorney911 was built for this. Ralph Manginello brings 25+ years of federal court experience. Lupe Peña brings the insider knowledge of a former defense attorney. We’ve gone head-to-head with BP and Walmart; the private equity sponsors of Sky Zone and Urban Air do not intimidate us.
Your child’s case is decided by what gets preserved this week. If you wait, the DVR overwrites, the attendant transfers, and the foam pit is refilled. Our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours of your call.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. No fee unless we win.
The Unclaimed Vertical: Sanitation and Infection in the Foam Pit
Most firms ignore Section E.16—the biological hazards. In City of Gholson, the “barefoot culture” of trampoline parks makes foam pits a primary vector for MRSA, Staph, and Group A Strep. Foam blocks absorb sweat, saliva, and urine. They cannot be effectively sanitized. If your child developed a deep soft-tissue infection or cellulitis after a visit, we investigate the park’s cleaning SOPs and chemical SDS logs. A park that reopened a contaminated pit without a deep clean is grossly negligent.
Adjacent Attractions: Go-Karts and Climbing Walls
Modern “trampoline” parks are now multi-attraction centers. The death of Emma Riddle in late 2025 at an Urban Air go-kart track and the 2019 death of Matthew Lu at an Altitude climbing wall prove that these bolted-on attractions are often the most dangerous. If a harness wasn’t attached or a mechanical throttle failed, the waiver drafted for “trampolining” may not even cover the injury. We plead these non-trampoline counts separately to bypass standard defenses.
Why Choose Attorney911 for your City of Gholson Case?
We represent families. We represent children. We represent the parent who stayed up all night searching for answers. We are the firm that knows the difference between a simple fracture and a lifetime of growth disturbance. We are the firm that knows which Texas Supreme Court justices favor arbitration and which arguments flip the script.
Whether it’s a Sky Zone in a major metro or a Jumpking in a City of Gholson backyard, we bring the same relentless discovery discipline to every case. We advance the truth, we advance the costs, and we make them pay.
1-888-ATTY-911.
