The Parent’s Complete Guide to Trampoline Park and Backyard Injuries in City of Windcrest

The Worst Scream: When “Family Fun” Becomes a Texas Nightmare

A Texas mother named Kaitlin “Kati” Hill once shared a warning that resonated through every parent group from the Rio Grande Valley to the Red River. She took her three-year-old son, Colton, to a “Toddler Time” session at a park that promised a safe environment for small children. Instead, what she experienced was a trauma that changed her family forever. As she told ABC News, Colton’s 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.”

Colton didn’t just have a bruise. He had a broken femur—the strongest bone in the human body—and he spent weeks in a body cast. Kati’s warning post was shared over 240,000 times because it struck a chord with a terrifying truth: parents in City of Windcrest and across Bexar County are being sold a promise of safety while their children are stepping into a system engineered for margin over medicine.

We are The Manginello Law Firm, better known as Attorney911. We are a Houston-based firm with a national reach, and we have spent over 25 years fighting for families in City of Windcrest and throughout Texas. Managing Partner Ralph Manginello has been litigating catastrophic injury cases since 1998, with experience taking on Fortune 500 giants like BP. Our team includes Lupe Peña, a former insurance defense attorney who used to sit on the other side of the table. He was the one writing and defending the same waiver clauses that Urban Air, Sky Zone, and Altitude rely on today in City of Windcrest. He knows their playbook because he helped write it—and now he uses that insider knowledge to hit them where it hurts.

If your child was injured at a facility like the Urban Air in NE San Antonio or the Altitude Trampoline Park near IH-10 after a trip from City of Windcrest, you are likely feeling a mix of terror and guilt. You might be staring at a medical chart at a facility like University Hospital or the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, wondering how a birthday party turned into a Salter-Harris growth plate fracture or a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

We are here to tell you two things immediately: First, it is not your fault. You signed that waiver because the line was long and the clerk was pushing you to hurry. You let them jump because you wanted them to have fun. The park was the one with the duty to follow safety standards. Second, the “waiver” you signed is not the absolute shield the park manager wants you to believe it is. In Texas, we have specific legal weapons to dismantle those documents, especially when it comes to the rights of a minor child.

Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. Whether you are in City of Windcrest or anywhere in the San Antonio metro, we answer 24/7. Hablamos Español. Our association attorney Lupe Peña speaks with you directly. The evidence clock is ticking—surveillance video at many parks overwrites in as little as 7 to 30 days. We need to act now.

Part I: The Systemic Architecture of Negligence

Trampoline park injuries are never truly accidents. They are the predictable output of a business model that prioritizes throughput and labor-cost reduction over pediatric safety. To understand why your child was hurt in City of Windcrest, you have to understand the standards the industry chooses to ignore.

The Voluntary Floor: ASTM F2970 vs. The Rest of the World

In the United States, the commercial trampoline park industry operates under a voluntary standard called ASTM F2970. This wasn’t written by the government; the industry wrote it about itself to establish a safety floor. Even so, most parks in Texas fail to meet even this minimal bar. Among other things, ASTM F2970 requires specific attendant-to-jumper ratios, enforced age and weight separation, and specific foam pit maintenance protocols.

While the U.S. relies on a voluntary system, the rest of the world has realized the danger is too high for a “suggestion.” In November 2022, the International Organization for Standardization published EN ISO 23659:2022, a mandatory standard across Europe that covers everything from design to daily operations. Australia mandates its own strict standards under AS 4989:2015.

In City of Windcrest, your child is jumping in a regulatory vacuum. Texas has no state-level trampoline park safety law. Two bills were introduced in the 88th Texas Legislature in 2023 that would have required state inspections and mandatory injury reporting. Both died in committee. This means the parks serving City of Windcrest are effectively self-regulated. When a park manager at a chain like Urban Air or Sky Zone tells you they follow “industry standards,” they are referring to a voluntary floor that the rest of the developed world treats as unsafe.

The Foreseeability Stack

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has been warning parents since 1999 that trampolines do not belong in recreational centers or homes. They reaffirmed this in 2012 and again in 2019. This is over 25 years of medical consensus. When your child lands in a foam pit at an Altitude park and breaks their neck, the park cannot claim surprise. They have had a quarter-century of clinical data telling them this would happen.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) tracks roughly 300,000 trampoline-related ER visits annually. A 2024 study in the journal Pediatrics by Teague et al. prospectively tracked 13,256 injuries and found that foam pits have an injury rate of 1.91 per 1,000 jumper-hours. “High-performance” jumping zones are even deadlier at 2.11 per 1,000 hours. This is no longer an obscure risk; it is a documented pediatric trauma category. According to a 2024 paper in the American Journal of Roentgenology, up to 1.6% of all pediatric emergency department trauma visits are now trampoline-related.

We bring 25+ years of experience to these cases because we know how to use this data to prove gross negligence. In Texas, gross negligence is the key to defeating a waiver. When a park knows the AAP has been warning about these attractions for 25 years, knows their own industry-written ASTM standard requires a specific attendant ratio, and chooses to ignore both to increase weekend profits, they have crossed the line from being “sloppy” to being “consciously indifferent.” That is where we win.

Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We know the science, and we know the standards. No fee unless we win.

Part II: The Physics of Pathogenesis

Most parents in City of Windcrest believe the “inherent risks” of a trampoline are just being sore or getting a small bruise. They are not told about the biological and physical forces that actually break children’s bodies.

The Double-Bounce: A Physics Catastrophe

The most common way children are catastrophically injured at parks like Sky Zone or Urban Air is the double-bounce. This happens when two people—often of wildly different weights—jump on the same trampoline bed. When a 200-pound adult lands on the mat at the same instant a 60-pound child from City of Windcrest is pushing off, the energy transfer multiplies the child’s launch force by up to four times.

The child isn’t jumping anymore; they are being catapulted. They are launched at a velocity and angle their developing musculoskeletal system cannot control. When they land, their bones, which are still growing and haven’t fully ossified, take the brunt of the kinetic energy. This is how you get a “catapult fracture”—bone-shattering impacts that wouldn’t happen in a solo jump.

ASTM F2970’s age-separation provisions exist specifically to prevent this physics event. When a court monitor at an Urban Air allows a teenager and a five-year-old on the same bed, they aren’t just breaking a “park rule.” They are triggering a known physical reaction that is 14 times more likely to injure the smaller child, according to biomedical studies by Nysted & Drogset.

Pediatric Biomechanics: Children’s Bones Are Different

Parents in City of Windcrest need to know that their child’s skeletal system is not just a smaller version of an adult’s. Children have growth plates (physes) that are made of cartilage, not yet hardened bone. These plates are the weakest part of a child’s skeleton.

In a trampoline landing, a child might suffer a Salter-Harris fracture. This is a break that runs through the growth plate. If not treated by a specialist at a Level 1 trauma center like University Hospital in San Antonio, this can lead to permanent limb-length discrepancy or angular deformity. The bone that should have grown over the next decade simply stops, or grows crooked. The damage might not even be visible for two or three years, until the parent notices one leg is measurably shorter than the other.

This is why we retain the best pediatric orthopedic consultants in the country. A general personal injury firm might see “a broken leg.” We see a Salter-Harris Type III injury that requires a ten-year life-care plan for corrective osteotomy and prosthetic lifts.

The Case and Data Anchor: Cosmic Jump $11.485 Million

We look to the landmark case of Max Menchaca v. Cosmic Jump as our Texas anchor. Max was 16 years old when he fell through a tear in a trampoline slide onto the concrete floor beneath. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and intracranial hemorrhage. The park pointed to the signed waiver. A Harris County jury looked at the evidence: the park had actual knowledge of the defect and did nothing. They awarded $11.485 million, including $6 million in punitive damages.

That case happened in Houston, but it defines the law for every family in City of Windcrest. It proves that Texas juries will look past a waiver when a corporation puts dollars before a child’s life.

If your child was the victim of a double-bounce or a maintenance failure, call 888-ATTY-911. We advance all costs for the biomechanical engineers and surgeons needed to prove your case.

Part III: The Multi-Layer Defendant Stack

If you were injured at a park in the San Antonio area, the manager might have handed you a card for an LLC you’ve never heard of. This is by design. The industry uses a layered corporate structure to shield the “deep pockets” from accountability.

Layer 1: The Operator LLC

This is the entity on the lease in San Antonio. It is often undercapitalized, with a primary insurance policy of only $1 million. For a child with a permanent spinal injury, $1 million doesn’t cover the first two years of ventilator care.

Layer 2: The Franchisee

Many Texas parks are franchises. The franchisee group may own multiple sites but still tries to disclaim liability by saying they just “follow the manual.”

Layer 3: The Franchisor

Entities like Sky Zone Franchising LLC or Urban Air Franchise Holdings provide the branding, the safety manual, and the training curriculum. We pursue them because they retained control over the very operations that failed your family. In the Damion Collins v. Urban Air Overland Park case, an arbitrator awarded $15.6 million and held the franchisor (UATP Management LLC) responsible for 40% of the fault. The arbitrator found there was a “SYSTEMIC FAILURE” to implement safety changes. We use this precedent to pierce the franchise shield.

Layer 4: The Brand Parent

As of January 2023, Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly known as CircusTrix LLC) is the parent of Sky Zone, DEFY, and Rockin’ Jump. They are backed by Palladium Equity Partners, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm. Similarly, Unleashed Brands (parent of Urban Air) was acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in 2023. These corporate conglomerates hire massive law firms to protect their margins. We aren’t intimidated. We’ve gone toe-to-toe with BP; we know how to litigate against Fortune 500-scale defense teams.

Layer 5: Component Manufacturers

Sometimes the mat is defective. Sometimes the harness on the climbing wall at an Urban Air wasn’t designed with a fail-safe. In the case of Matthew Lu, a 12-year-old who died at an Altitude park in 2019 after a 20-foot fall, the lawsuit named Ropes Courses, Inc. as the designer of the wall. We look at every stitch and every weld to find the manufacturer who failed.

The park has a team of corporate lawyers. You need one too. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español.

Part IV: The Texas Waiver Teardown

If you were at the Urban Air in NE San Antonio or the The Rush Fun Park, you signed an electronic waiver on an iPad. You probably didn’t read it. You probably felt you had no choice. The park’s insurance adjuster will call you soon—if they haven’t already—and their first sentence will be: “You signed a waiver, so there’s really nothing we can do.”

They are lying.

The Munoz Doctrine: Protecting Your Child’s Rights

In Texas, the case of Munoz v. II Jaz, Inc. established a principle that every City of Windcrest parent should memorize: a parent cannot sign away a minor child’s personal injury cause of action. While your own right as a parent to sue for medical bills might be affected by that waiver, your child’s right to be whole survives your signature. This is a fundamental public policy protection in our state.

The Dresser Fair Notice Requirement

For an adult, a waiver must be “conspicuous” and meet the “express negligence doctrine” under Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum. This means the word “negligence” must be used explicitly and the text must be so prominent that a reasonable person would see it. Many iPad waivers bury this language in a scrolling box or small grey text that fails the Dresser test.

The Delfingen Bilingual Defense

San Antonio and City of Windcrest are bilingual communities. If your family’s primary language is Spanish and the park forced you to sign an English-only document without a translation, the Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela doctrine may render that contract unenforceable. We fight for the Hispanic community in Bexar County by ensuring language is never used as a trap to steal your rights.

Gross Negligence and “Inherent Risk”

Waivers generally only cover “ordinary” negligence—the kind of simple mistake anyone could make. They cannot waive gross negligence. When an Urban Air in Southlake reportedly tells employees “NOT to call 911” or when a park allows 60 kids on a court with one monitor, they are no longer being “ordinarily” negligent. They are being reckless. That recklessness voids the paper you signed.

Furthermore, a waiver only covers “inherent risks.” An inherent risk of a trampoline is a sore muscle. It is not inherent for a foam pit to be compacted so tightly that it feels like landing on wood. It is not inherent for a zipline harness to be unattached.

Don’t let a piece of paper stop you from seeking justice. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Lupe Peña knows exactly which waiver clauses are full of holes because he used to defend them.

Part V: Catastrophic Pediatric Injuries and The Life-Care Plan

When a child from City of Windcrest is injured, the medical bills they have today are only a fraction of the cost. We specialize in the “medicine of the case” to ensure your family isn’t left holding the bill for a lifetime of care.

Spinal-Cord Infarction and Vertebral Artery Dissection

The Elle Yona TikTok case brought international attention to a terrifying injury: spinal-cord stroke. Doing a backflip into a foam pit can torque the neck in a way that tears the vertebral artery—the blood vessel supplying the spine. This creates a stroke in the spinal cord, leading to paralysis. In Elle’s case, it was initially misdiagnosed as a “panic attack.”

If your teen has sudden back or neck pain after a flip, and the ER in San Antonio is dismissing it, you need a second opinion immediately. This is a neurovascular emergency.

SCIWORA: The Invisible Neck Injury

SCIWRA stands for Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality. It is a pediatric-specific phenomenon where a child’s spine is so flexible that the cord is crushed or stretched, but the bones move back into place. An X-ray or CT scan at an urgent care clinic might look perfectly normal while the child is slowly becoming paralyzed. This requires an MRI and a specialist who knows what to look for.

Rhabdomyolysis: The Muscle Crisis

If your child jumped for 90 minutes in a hot San Antonio park and arrives home with dark-brown “cola-colored” urine and extreme muscle pain, they may have exertional rhabdomyolysis. This is a life-threatening breakdown of muscle tissue that can lead to acute kidney failure.

We are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving rhabdo. We have built the medical expert network to document the muscle-and-organ breakdown, prove the causation, and make the park pay for the child’s future monitoring and potential dialysis needs.

The Pediatric Life-Care Plan (LCP)

A “broken bone” in an eight-year-old is a ten-year financial commitment. We use Certified Life Care Planners to itemize:

• Future surgeries for growth plate correction.
• Annual orthopedic specialist visits through age 18.
• Vocational experts to calculate the lifetime loss of earning capacity.
• Psychological support for PTSD (many children are terrified to play after a park injury).

Most firms settle for the hospital bill. We settle for the next seventy years.

Call 1-888-ATTY-911 for a free evaluation of your child’s future needs. No fee unless we win.

Part VI: The 48-Hour Evidence Protocol

The moment your child is out of the ambulance, the park’s risk management team is working to protect the park. You need to protect your family.

Surveillance Video: The 7-Day Window

Trampoline park DVR systems are often set to overwrite in as little as 7 to 30 days. Some parks “glitch” their footage or “lose” the key camera angle. In the case of Mathew Knight in Georgia, a jury awarded $3.5 million after surveillance video conveniently glitched on four cameras simultaneously at the moment of injury. The jury inferred spoliation—destruction of evidence.

We send a formal spoliation letter by certified mail and email to the park’s general counsel within 24 hours of your retention. This legally “freezes” the evidence. If they delete it after our letter, we move for sanctions and an adverse-inference instruction at trial.

The Incident Report: Metadata Matters

The original incident report filled out the night of the event is the truth. The version that appears in discovery six months later is often “revised.” Our digital forensic experts pull the file metadata to see who edited the report, when, and what they changed. We’ve seen “attendant on phone” turned into “incident was unavoidable guest error.” We find the first draft.

Ex-Employee Outreach

Staff at San Antonio trampoline parks turn over at a rate of 130-150% per year. By the time we file suit, the monitor who watched your child fall probably doesn’t work there anymore. They are often willing to tell the truth once they are out from under the manager’s thumb. We use private investigators to find these witnesses and get their statements while their memory is fresh.

Documenting the Scene

If you can, go back to the park in City of Windcrest or San Antonio today. Take photos of the padding, the springs, and the monitors. Are the monitors looking at their phones? Are there adults and small children on the same court? That current operational state is admissible context.

Part VII: Backyard Trampolines and Attractive Nuisance

While parks are the high-traffic hazard, more injuries happen in backyards across City of Windcrest. If your child was hurt on a neighbor’s trampoline or your own equipment failed, the legal path is different.

Attractive Nuisance: The Trespassing Child

Texas law recognizes the Attractive Nuisance Doctrine. If you have a trampoline in City of Windcrest that isn’t fenced or has a ladder left in place, and a neighbor’s child wanders over and gets hurt, the homeowner may be liable—even if the child was a “trespasser.” The law recognizes that children of “tender years” are too young to understand the danger of a shiny trampoline.

Manufacturer Defects: The Recall List

Many backyard trampolines have documented defect histories.

• Jumpking: Recalled 1 million units in 2005 for breaking welds and enclosure sharp edges.
• Skywalker: Recalled 60,000 units for enclosure strap failures.
• Bouncepro (Walmart): Recalled 120,000 units for netting that breaks, allowing children to fall through.
• SEGMART: 2026 recall for toddler trampoline strangulation hazards.

Under the Bolger v. Amazon and Oberdorf v. Amazon doctrines, even if the manufacturer is a nameless company in another country, the retailer (Walmart, Amazon, Costco) can be held liable as the “seller” in most situations.

Insurance Exclusion Traps

Most homeowners’ insurance policies in City of Windcrest EXCLUDE trampoline injuries. If your neighbor says, “don’t worry, my insurance will cover it,” they are likely wrong. We look at additional layers—umbrella policies and manufacturer product liability towers—to find the actual recovery source.

Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We handle backyard product liability and premises cases with the same intensity as our park cases.

Part VIII: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What should I do if my child got hurt at an Urban Air in City of Windcrest?

First, seek medical attention at a Level 1 pediatric facility like University Hospital. Second, call us immediately at 1-888-ATTY-911. Do not give a recorded statement to the park’s adjuster. We need to send a spoliation letter today to freeze the surveillance video before it is deleted.

How long do I have to sue a trampoline park in Texas?

The statute of limitations for personal injury is generally two years. However, for a minor child, the clock is “tolled” (paused) until they turn 18, giving them until age 20 to file. BUT, you should never wait. Evidence dies, witnesses disappear, and the park’s insurance might be exhausted by other claims. We recommend filing within the first three to six months.

Can I sue the trampoline park if I signed the waiver?

Yes. In Texas, parents generally cannot waive a minor child’s personal injury claim (Munoz v. II Jaz). For adults, the waiver is often void if the park was grossly negligent, violated safety standards like ASTM F2970, or if the waiver wasn’t conspicuous enough under the Dresser doctrine.

How much money is a trampoline injury case worth?

Every case is different, but catastrophic injuries in Texas have resulted in multi-million dollar recoveries. The Cosmic Jump $11.485 million verdict and the Damion Collins $15.6 million arbitration are benchmarks for what happens when gross negligence is proven. Even “standard” fractures can reach six-figure settlements when growth plate damage and lifetime medical needs are documented.

Why does the insurance company want me to take a $3,000 “Med-Pay” check?

We call this the Med-Pay Trojan Horse. They offer a small amount to pay your immediate co-pays in exchange for you signing a “full release.” Once you sign that, your million-dollar claim disappears. Never sign anything or deposit a check from the park’s insurer without a lawyer reading it.

Is the foam pit really safe for my kid?

By mechanism and gravity of injury, foam pits are the single most dangerous attraction at any park. The industry is rapidly replacing them with airbags because they know foam pits cause C1-C4 cervical fractures. If a park in San Antonio still has a foam pit, they are lagging behind the state of the art in safety.

What if my child has dark urine after jumping?

Get to an Emergency Room immediately. This is a hallmark sign of rhabdomyolysis, a medical emergency that can lead to acute kidney failure. Ask for a creatine kinase (CK) test. We have extensive experience with rhabdo cases and can help you build the medical-legal link to the park’s negligence.

Does it cost anything to hire Attorney911?

No upfront cost. We work on a contingency fee basis—we only get paid if we win. We advance all the costs for the engineers, doctors, and investigators. If we don’t recover money for your family, you owe us nothing.

What if the park says it was my child’s fault?

Texas is a modified comparative negligence (51% bar) state. Even if your child was partially responsible for landing wrong, you can still recover as long as the park was 50% or more at fault. Given that children under seven are often presumed incapable of negligence in many contexts, the “blame the kid” defense rarely holds up in our cases.

We speak Spanish at home—can you help us?

Sí. El abogado Lupe Peña es bilingüe y representa a familias hispanas directamente. Conocemos la doctrina Delfingen que protege a las familias cuando firman documentos en inglés que no comprenden perfectamente. No deje que el idioma sea una barrera para la justicia de su hijo.

Part IX: Why Attorney911 is the Moat Between Your Family and the Insurance Companies

Most personal injury firms handle a trampoline case like a standard “slip and fall.” They don’t know the ASTM F2970 provisions, they don’t know why a Salter-Harris fracture is different from a standard break, and they are afraid of the waiver.

We are different.

1. The Waiver Edge: Associate attorney Lupe Peña used to defend these parks. He knows where the holes are because he used to try and plug them.
2. The Federal Standard: Ralph Manginello brings 25+ years of federal court experience. We don’t just sue the local LLC; we go upstream to the franchisor, the parent company (Sky Zone Inc, Unleashed Brands), and the private equity sponsors like Palladium and Seidler.
3. The Medical Depth: Our active $10M UH hazing case gives us a surgical-grade understanding of rhabdomyolysis and acute clinical injury that no other firm in Texas can match.
4. The No-Fee Guarantee: We take all the risk. We pay $50,000 or more in expert witness fees to prove our cases. You pay nothing until we win.

Your child has one chance to get the recovery they need for the rest of their life. If you settle too early, or with a firm that doesn’t understand the long-term impact of a growth plate destruction or a TBI, your child will be the one paying the price for the next fifty years.

Call us today at 1-888-ATTY-911. 24/7 availability. Three Texas offices. National authority.

Wait time is the enemy of evidence. Your park’s surveillance DVR is overwriting as you read this. Let us send the spoliation letter. Let us take over the calls from the insurance adjuster. You focus on your child’s recovery. We will focus on the park’s accountability.

1-888-ATTY-911.
Hablamos Español.
Representing City of Windcrest Families.