“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 Hill, a mother who lived through every parent’s ultimate nightmare after taking her three-year-old son to a “Toddler Time” session at a park she believed was safe. Colton spent months in a body cast with a broken femur because a larger child was allowed on the same trampoline.
In New Chapel Hill, these stories aren’t just headlines from across the country; they represent a growing pediatric trauma category that we see every day in East Texas. For over twenty-five years, Ralph Manginello and our team at Attorney911 have stood at the bedsides of families whose lives were changed in a single, two-second bounce. We’ve seen the surgery scars, we’ve walked through the rehabilitation centers, and we’ve deposed the corporate officers who made the decisions that led to those injuries.
If your child was hurt at a trampoline park near New Chapel Hill or suffered an accident on a backyard trampoline in Smith County, the most important thing we can tell you is this: it was not a “freak accident,” and it was not your fault. It was the predictable output of a system designed to prioritize profit over your child’s safety.
The Reality of Trampoline Injuries in New Chapel Hill
Our community in New Chapel Hill values family, youth sports, and outdoor play. Whether your children are jumping on a Jumpking or Skywalker trampoline in your backyard or visiting one of the major chains in nearby Tyler, like Urban Air or iJump, they are part of a massive, under-regulated industry.
Nationally, approximately 300,000 trampoline-related ER visits happen every year. A staggering 1.6% of all pediatric emergency department trauma visits in the United States are now trampoline-related, according to a 2024 report by the American Journal of Roentgenology. These aren’t just “bumps and bruises.” We represent families dealing with:
- Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI): Like Max Menchaca, who fell through a torn trampoline slide onto concrete at Cosmic Jump in Houston.
- Spinal Cord Injuries and Paralysis: Often caused by head-first entries into foam pits or failed flips on open courts.
- Salter-Harris Growth Plate Fractures: Injuries that can cause a child’s limb to grow crookedly or stop growing entirely as they age.
- Rhabdomyolysis: A life-threatening muscle-breakdown condition often triggered by extended jumping in the humid East Texas heat.
Most personal injury firms in Smith County handle a trampoline case like they would any other slip-and-fall. We don’t. We built our dedicated trampoline practice because we know that holding national chains like Sky Zone, Urban Air, and Altitude accountable requires a level of forensic and medical depth that most firms simply don’t possess. We know the corporate archeology of these companies, from their private equity sponsors like Palladium Equity and Seidler Equity, down to the 17-year-old attendant who was on their phone when your child landed wrong.
Why “Accidents” Are Actually Business Decisions
The industry wants you to believe that jumping on a trampoline is inherently risky and that you “assumed the risk” when you handed over your credit card and signed that kiosk waiver. We reject that premise entirely.
A trampoline injury is almost always the result of a business decision. When a park in the New Chapel Hill area operates at half the required attendant ratio to save on labor costs, that is a business decision. When a facility in Tyler keeps a foam pit open despite knowing the cubes have compacted below the safety depth required by ASTM F2970, that is a business decision. When a manufacturer like Jumpking or Skywalker sells a product against the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) 25-year-old warning because it’s profitable, that is a business decision.
Our firm is led by Ralph Manginello, who brings federal court experience and a track record of taking on Fortune 500 giants like BP, Walmart, and Amazon. Alongside him is Lupe Peña, an attorney who used to represent the insurance companies and recreational facilities we now sue. He literally knows the “friendly adjuster” playbook because he used to write the script. He knows where the holes are in their waivers because he used to try and keep those same waivers airtight.
We don’t hope to find negligence; we establish it using the industry’s own standards.
The Standards That Protect New Chapel Hill Families
Most parents believe the government inspects trampoline parks. In Texas, that is unfortunately false. There is no statewide trampoline park safety act. No mandatory state inspections for the trampoline decks. No mandatory injury reporting.
In states like New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, there are binding regulations. In Texas, the only standard of care is established by:
- ASTM F2970: The standard for commercial trampoline courts. Ironically, the industry wrote this standard itself. When they violate it—by ignoring attendant-to-jumper ratios or age-separation rules—they are violating their own definitions of safety.
- EN ISO 23659:2022: The international and European standard that is mandatory across much of the developed world. We use this standard to prove that Sky Zone, Urban Air, and DEFY are capable of meeting higher safety bars in other countries but choose not to here in Texas.
- AAP Policy Statements: Since 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics has specifically advised against recreational trampoline use for children. They reaffirmed this in 2012 and again in 2019.
- ASTM F381: The safety specification for consumer backyard trampolines, which explicitly prohibits children under six from using the equipment.
When we build your case, we don’t just say the park was “careless.” We identify the exact provision of ASTM F2970 or F381 that was breached. We prove that the park or manufacturer had actual knowledge of the risk and chose to ignore it.
We represent families. We represent children. We represent the parent standing at a hospital bedside tonight in New Chapel Hill. If that is you, call 1-888-ATTY-911 right now. Our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours to ensure that surveillance video doesn’t “disappear.”
The Physics of the Catastrophe: Double-Bouncing and Rebound Force
The single most common injury mechanism in New Chapel Hill trampoline accidents is the “double-bounce.” The physics are brutal. When a 200-pound adult lands on a trampoline bed at the same instant a 60-pound child is pushing off, the energy transfer multiplies the child’s launch force by up to four times. The child isn’t jumping; they are being thrown with a velocity their musculoskeletal system cannot absorb.
ASTM F2970 requires parks to operationalize weight and age separation specifically because this physics is known. Yet, on a busy Saturday afternoon in nearby Tyler, monitors often allow teenagers and toddlers on the same interconnected courts. This leads to what pediatric surgeons call “trampoline fractures”—buckle fractures of the proximal tibia that can alter a child’s gait for a lifetime.
Why the Kiosk Waiver Isn’t a Wall
The first thing an insurance adjuster will tell you when they call your New Chapel Hill home is: “You signed a waiver.” They want you to believe your case is over before it begins.
In Texas, waivers are enforceable, but they aren’t absolute. Texas courts have repeatedly voided waivers for:
- Gross Negligence: A signed paper does not excuse a park’s conscious indifference to safety. In Harris County, a jury awarded Max Menchaca $11.485 million after finding Cosmic Jump grossly negligent for failing to repair a torn trampoline slide.
- The Dresser Doctrine: Under Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum, a waiver must be “conspicuous” and explicitly use the word “negligence.” If it was buried in a 20-screen iPad click-through that you were pressured to sign, it frequently fails the fair-notice test.
- The Munoz Rule: Fundamental Texas law (Munoz v. II Jaz Inc.) states that a parent generally cannot bindingly waive a minor child’s own tort claims in advance. Your signature may bar your own claims, but your child’s right to recovery survived the moment you touched “I agree.”
- Bilingual Formation Defects: According to the Delfingen doctrine, if your family’s primary language is Spanish and the park only provided an English waiver without a translation or explanation, the contract itself may be invalid.
Lupe Peña speaks Spanish natively and handles these Delfingen attacks for our clients directly—no interpreters, no delays.
The High Cost of the “Foam Pit” Illusion
Foam pits are marketed as the softest place to land, but they are often the most dangerous attraction in a park. When foam cubes are not rotated or replaced, they compact. A parent looking at a “full” pit from the side cannot see that the cubes have compressed to just a few inches of clearance over a concrete or hard-pad floor.
The industry’s move toward pressurized airbags is a silent admission that foam pits are cervical spine traps. Head-first entry into a compacted pit often results in SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality)—a pediatric condition where the spinal cord is stretched or compressed even when the bones look normal on a CT scan. By the time a child in New Chapel Hill begins to feel numbness hours later, the damage is often permanent.
Rhabdomyolysis: The Invisible Emergency in East Texas
Because of our local climate, we pay special attention to Exertional Rhabdomyolysis. We currently litigate a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving this exact condition—the rapid breakdown of muscle tissue that releases toxic myoglobin into the blood.
In an indoor park running at 85 degrees with inadequate ventilation, a child jumping for 90 minutes straight can experience rhabdo. Symptoms like dark, “cola-colored” urine, extreme muscle pain, and vomiting are medical emergencies that lead to acute kidney failure. If your child showed these signs after a visit to a jump park, you aren’t just looking for a “personal injury” lawyer—you need a firm that knows how to document a myoglobin cascade and a renal tubular injury. That’s us.
Proving the Case: Our Forensic Case-Build
When we take a trampoline injury case in New Chapel Hill, our investigation protocol starts the hour you hire us. We don’t take the park’s word for what happened.
- 24-Hour Spoliation: We send a certified demand to the operator, the franchisor, and the corporate parent (Sky Zone Inc. or Unleashed Brands) to freeze the DVR footage. Park surveillance typically overwrites in 7 to 30 days. We preserve it before it’s gone.
- Kiosk Archaeology: We pull the audit logs from the waiver system to see which version you signed and whether the “conspicuousness” required by Texas law was actually present on the screen you saw.
- Chain-Wide Patterning: Under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), we subpoena the chain’s national incident logs. If Urban Air had a Sky Rider zipline strangulation in Georgia or Florida, it proves the design defect was foreseeable here in Texas.
- Staff Training Audits: We pull the personnel files of every monitor on duty. We find out if they were hired last week, if they had their mandated eight hours of training, and if they were being worked past the legal limits for teenagers, a pattern cited in a $68,000 fine against a Sky Zone in 2025.
Our offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont serve as the command centers for these investigations, but our reach is national.
What Is Fair Compensation for Your Family?
A “broken leg” is a label the insurance company uses to minimize your claim. A pediatric femur fracture is a $500,000 to $2 million damages event when properly calculated. We work with life-care planners and forensic economists to project what your child will need over the next sixty years:
- Corrective surgeries for growth plate disturbances that manifest years later.
- Educational accommodations for children suffering from “mild” concussions that produced executive function deficits.
- Attendant care for catastrophic cervical injuries.
- Special Needs Trusts to protect settlement funds and preserve government benefits.
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.” Other firms turn these cases down because the waivers scare them. We’ve been beating corporate lawyers for a quarter century. They don’t scare us.
Frequently Asked Questions for New Chapel Hill Parents
My kid was injured at a birthday party and I didn’t sign a waiver—the other parent did. Does it still count?
Almost certainly not. Under Texas law, only a legal guardian or court-appointed conservator has the authority to sign a waiver for a minor. If another parent signed for your child, that signature is a legal nullity as to your child’s rights.
How long do I have to sue a trampoline park in Texas?
The adult statute of limitations in Texas is two years. For minors, the clock is tolled until they turn 18, meaning they have until age 20. However, the evidence clock is much shorter. If you wait even a month, the surveillance video is gone and the court monitors have quit. We file early because that’s how you win.
Does homeowners insurance cover accidents on my backyard trampoline?
Many policies in Smith County have a “trampoline exclusion.” If your neighbor’s child was hurt on your equipment and your policy excludes it, your personal assets may be at risk. Conversely, if your child was hurt at a neighbor’s house, we look for “umbrella” policies that often override the basic trampoline exclusion.
Is the “friendly adjuster” call normal?
It’s a tactic we call the Friendly Adjuster Trap. They will sound concerned and offer “Med-Pay,” which is usually a small check for a few thousand dollars. Do not deposit it. The back of that check or the fine print in the letter is a release that ends your child’s case before you know the full extent of their growth-plate or spinal damage.
Can I sue the franchisor, like Urban Air Corporate, or just the local park?
In most cases, we sue both. The $15.6 million Damion Collins award in 2023 saw 40% of the fault assigned to the franchisor corporate office. We pierce the “we are just a brand licensor” defense by showing they controlled the safety training and operations that failed your child.
Call Attorney911 Today
Your child’s future is decided by what gets preserved this week. If you’re at a hospital in Smith County right now, or if your family is struggling with the mounting medical bills from a jump-park catastrophe, don’t face the insurance conglomerates alone.
We work on a contingency basis—no fee unless we win. We advance every cost for the experts and investigators your case requires. We treat our clients like family. As Chad Harris said, “You are NOT a pest to them and you are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.”
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 or (888) 288-9911 now. Hablamos Español. We serve New Chapel Hill, Tyler, and all of Texas with the authority that twenty-five years of experience provides. The case starts today.
Understanding The Architecture of Accountability
When we investigate a park near New Chapel Hill, we look for more than just the moment of the fall. We look for the systemic failures that made the fall inevitable. This includes:
- Manufacturer Owner’s Manuals (IFUs): We compare the park’s operations to the equipment manufacturer’s own warnings.
- Franchise Agreements: We look for the branding control that makes the corporate parent liable under apparent agency doctrines.
- Daily Inspection Logs: We look for defects that were documented on a Tuesday but not repaired by the time your child jumped on a Saturday.
- Staffing Logs: We cross-reference the number of wristbands sold against the number of court monitors on the clock.
If the park’s surveillance system “glitched” at the exact moment of the injury, we treat it as a Mathew Knight problem. A Georgia jury awarded $3.5 million on that pattern because they recognized spoliation when they saw it. We follow that same aggressive playbook here in Smith County.
The New National standard: EN ISO 23659:2022
In November 2022, the rest of the world adopted mandatory safety requirements for trampoline parks. The United States still relies on voluntary ASTM standards. We use this gap to show Texas juries that the parent conglomerates behind these parks know exactly how to operate safely—they just choose not to do it in New Chapel Hill because nobody is forcing them to. We will be the ones who force them.
Pediatric Biology Matters
A child’s bone is biomechanically distinct. It is more pliable, yet the growth plates are more vulnerable. A “fracture” in a child can mean twenty years of physical therapy or a permanently shortened limb. This is why we use medical experts who specialize in pediatric orthopedics and neurosurgery. We don’t just prove the injury happened; we prove what that injury means for the rest of your child’s life.
Ready to Fight Back?
The insurance towers behind these parks are deep. They have primary liability policies, umbrellas, and excess layers that reach into the dozens of millions. Our job is to find every dollar your child needs for a full recovery. We have gone toe-to-toe with the giant corporations that drive our Texas economy, and we aren’t intimidated by the PE-backed owners of a jump park.
Whether it’s a dodgeball collision, a Sky Rider zipline strangulation, a climbing wall fall, or a backyard trampoline that collapsed, we know the path to justice.
1-888-ATTY-911. Free Consultation. Available 24/7.
Guía para Familias Hispanas:
Si su idioma principal es el español, no permita que la barrera del idioma sea una herramienta para la compañía de seguros. Lupe Peña hablará con usted directamente. Si firmó un documento en inglés que no comprendía, la ley de Texas puede estar de su lado bajo la doctrina Delfingen. Usted tiene los mismos derechos que cualquier otra familia de Texas para proteger el futuro de su hijo. Llame al 1-888-ATTY-911 hoy mismo.
