“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 how Kati Hill described the moment her three-year-old son’s life changed at a trampoline park. That scream is the sound of a system failing a family. For parents in the Village of Salado, these facilities are marketed as centers of “active family fun” and “safe energy burning.” Whether you are taking the kids down the I-35 corridor to the Xtreme Jump in Temple—the massive 60,000-square-foot flagship facility of that chain—or heading toward the Urban Air locations in Killeen or Waco, you are entering an environment where business decisions regarding floor staffing and equipment maintenance directly collide with the biomechanics of your child’s developing body.
We are The Manginello Law Firm, known to families across Texas and the nation as Attorney911. We have spent more than 25 years in the trenches of catastrophic injury litigation. Our founder, Ralph Manginello, has spent over two decades holding Fortune 500 corporations accountable in federal and state courts, including complex litigation following the BP Texas City refinery explosion. We are not a general practice firm that happens to take an occasional injury case. We are a firm of trial lawyers who have memorized the safety standards the trampoline industry wrote to protect itself—and we use those standards to hold them responsible when those same rules are violated to protect their profit margins.
If your child was injured at a trampoline park serving the Village of Salado, or was hurt on a defective backyard trampoline in one of our shaded neighborhoods near Salado Creek, your family is now caught in an evidentiary and insurance race. The park’s surveillance DVR systems typically began overwriting your child’s incident within 7 to 30 days. The waiver you signed at the kiosk was drafted by corporate counsel who knew it might not hold up in a Texas court, but they are counting on you believing it is an absolute shield. It is not. We have built our trampoline injury practice to dismantle that shield, layer by layer, starting with the very first phone call.
The Reality of Trampoline Injuries in Central Texas
Living in the Village of Salado, we value our local heritage and the safety of our tight-knit community. But when we step onto the property of a major commercial jump arena, we are stepping into a regulatory vacuum. While many parents assume the state or federal government conduct rigorous safety inspections of these facilities, the reality is far more dangerous.
Modern Trampoline Parks Are a System of Decisions
A trampoline injury is never just an accident. It is the predictable output of a business model designed to maximize jumper density while minimizing labor costs. Every day, national chains like Sky Zone, Inc. (renamed from CircusTrix LLC in 2023 and backed by Palladium Equity Partners) and Unleashed Brands (the parent of Urban Air, acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in 2023) process thousands of jumpers across Texas.
When your child is launched into the air by a “double-bounce,” or falls into a foam pit that hasn’t been refilled or rotated in months, a specific set of ASTM standards is being violated. Most personal injury firms cannot tell you what ASTM F2970 requires of a trampoline park. We can cite it from memory. We know the attendant-to-jumper ratios, the required foam pit depths, and the age-separated jumping zones that these parks are required to maintain under the very rules their own industry wrote.
Why Every Minute Counts in Village of Salado
If you are reading this from a bedside at McLane Children’s Medical Center in Temple or at a trauma center in Austin, you need to understand that the park’s risk management team is already at work. Before the EMS unit even cleared the parking lot at the facility where your child was hurt, the park’s management was likely instructed to document the event in a way that shifts blame to your child or to you as the parent.
This is why we provide 24/7 availability at 1-888-ATTY-911. We don’t wait for the park to “do the right thing.” We send a formal spoliation and preservation-of-evidence letter within 24 hours of your retention. We demand the original, unedited surveillance footage from all camera angles. We demand the time-clock records of every attendant on duty. We demand the daily and monthly inspection logs. In the legal world surrounding Village of Salado, the case is often won or lost based on what is preserved in the first 72 hours.
How Trampoline Accidents Actually Happen: The Physics of Negligence
Trampoline parks market themselves as a playground for all ages, but physics doesn’t distinguish between a toddler and an adult. When a park fails to follow ASTM F2970—the industry standard for commercial trampoline courts—catastrophic injuries are the result.
The Double-Bounce: A Multiplication of Force
The most common and devastating mechanism of injury is the “double-bounce.” When a 200-pound adult lands on a trampoline bed at the same instant an 80-pound child is pushing off, kinetic energy is transferred through the mat. The child isn’t just jumping; they are being launched with force multiplied by up to four times. This energy transfer can be as powerful as being hit by an 18-wheeler at highway speeds.
ASTM F2970 requires parks to operationalize age and weight separation to prevent this exact scenario. Yet, at parks near Village of Salado on a busy Saturday afternoon, you will frequently see teen attendants on their phones while adults and small children jump on the same courts. This is not a “risk inherent in jumping.” This is a blatant violation of safety standards that leads directly to shattered tibias and fractured femurs.
Foam Pit Failures and Cervical Injuries
Foam pits are often the most dangerous attractions in these facilities. They look soft, but they frequently hide a hard concrete floor or a compacted layer of old, degraded foam blocks. The industry has known for years that foam pits are implicated in permanent spinal cord injuries. That is why many parks are transitioning to airbag “stunt bags,” but those that still use foam pits are required to maintain specific depths and densities under current standards.
When a jumper enters a pit head-first—a maneuver the park should have staff trained to prevent—and hits the bottom because the foam hasn’t been rotated or refilled, the result can be a cervical spine fracture or SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality). These are life-altering events that require specialized pediatric neurologists and years of rehabilitation.
Non-Trampoline Attractions: The New Risk Frontier
Modern “adventure parks” in Central Texas have expanded far beyond trampolines. Facilities like Urban Air and Xtreme Jump now feature:
- Sky Rider Ziplines and Indoor Coasters: We have seen a documented chain-wide pattern of strangulations and falls on these attractions, including incidents in Georgia and Illinois where children were strangled by harness cords.
- Climbing Walls: Harnesses that aren’t properly secured or auto-belay systems that fail can lead to falls of 20 feet or more onto inadequately padded concrete.
- Go-Karts: As seen in the 2025 Emma Riddle fatality in Port St. Lucie, mechanical failures in electric go-karts can send a child into a wall at high speeds.
- Ninja Courses: Falls from height onto mats that have bottomed out because they haven’t been replaced are a major source of fractures.
Dismantling the Waiver: Why You Still Have a Case
The most frequent thing we hear from families in Village of Salado is, “I signed a waiver at the kiosk, so I probably don’t have a case.” This is exactly what the insurance adjusters want you to believe. They will point at that digital document and tell you that you waived your right to sue.
In Texas, and in the majority of states across the country, the waiver is not an absolute barrier to justice.
The Gross Negligence Carve-Out
No waiver in America can legally release a company from liability for its own gross negligence. In Texas, gross negligence is defined by a conscious disregard for the safety of others. When a park knows its equipment is torn, knows its staff is undertrained, or knows a specific attraction has a history of injuries and does nothing to fix it, that is gross negligence.
The max-value anchor for Texas trampoline law remains the Cosmic Jump $11.485 million jury verdict in Harris County. In that case, a 16-year-old fell through a hole in a trampoline slide onto a concrete floor. The park argued that the parents signed a waiver. The jury saw past the paper. They found the park grossly negligent because the operator knew about the defect and chose to keep the attraction open. That is the kind of case we are built to handle.
Parental Indemnity and Minor Rights in Texas
Texas holds a strong public policy position on the rights of children. Under the landmark case Munoz v. II Jaz Inc., Texas courts have held that a parent generally cannot sign away their minor child’s personal injury claim in advance. While you might have waived your own right to sue for your own injuries, your child’s right to seek compensation for their medical care, future pain and suffering, and lost earning capacity remains intact.
Furthermore, under Texas Family Code § 153.073, only a legal parent or court-appointed conservator has the authority to sign a waiver for a child. In many cases at Village of Salado area birthday parties or quinceañeras, a grandmother, aunt, or family friend may have signed the kiosk waiver. That signature is legally insufficient to bind the child, creating an immediate opening for us to file a claim.
The Bilingual Formation Attack
For our neighbors in Village of Salado who are Spanish-speaking, we bring a specialized advantage. Our associate attorney, Lupe Peña, is a native Spanish speaker who used to defend these very companies. He knows that many parks present English-only digital waivers to Spanish-speaking families without providing a translation or a reasonable chance to understand the terms. Under the Delfingen doctrine, Texas courts can void an agreement—including an arbitration or waiver clause—when there was a significant language barrier at the time of formation. Hablamos Español. Llame al 1-888-ATTY-911. Lupe Peña habla con usted directamente.
The Medical Reality: Pediatric Injuries Are Different
A “broken leg” at a trampoline park is never just a simple break. Because the majority of victims are children, the medicine required is specialized.
Salter-Harris Growth Plate Fractures
Children’s bones are still growing. They have cartilaginous zones called growth plates (physes) that are weaker than the surrounding bone and ligaments. A trampoline impact often results in a Salter-Harris fracture. If this injury is not managed correctly by a pediatric orthopedic specialist, it can lead to permanent limb-length discrepancy or angular deformity. The damage you see today may not fully manifest until your child is 14 or 15 and their bones fail to grow straight.
SCIWORA and Cervical Trauma
Pediatric spines are more flexible than adult spines. A child can suffer a catastrophic spinal cord injury without any visible fracture on a standard CT scan. This is called SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality). We work with medical experts who understand that a “normal” ER discharge doesn’t always mean a child is safe. If your child was told they just had a “panic attack” after a trampoline backflip, but they are still experiencing neurological symptoms, they need specialized imaging and a legal team that won’t accept a dismissal of their trauma.
Rhabdomyolysis: The Silent Emergency
One of the most under-recognized medical emergencies in trampoline parks is exertional rhabdomyolysis. In the intense heat of a Texas summer, children who jump for 60 to 90 minutes straight in an inadequately ventilated facility can suffer severe muscle breakdown. This releases myoglobin into the bloodstream, which is toxic to the kidneys.
We are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure. We have built a medical and expert network that understands this muscle-and-organ pathology perfectly. If your child had cola-colored urine, extreme muscle pain, or confusion in the days following a park visit, you are facing a medical crisis that we are prepared to litigate.
The Corporate Archeology: Who Actually Pays?
When we sue a trampoline park, we are not just suing the local LLC. We perform deep corporate archeology to find the layers of insurance that provide a full recovery.
The typical trampoline park defense is a shell game. The local park is usually a separate LLC designed to shield the franchisor and the private equity parents. We know how to pierce these layers.
- The Operator LLC: The local business running the park.
- The Franchisee: The multi-unit group that owns several locations.
- The Franchisor: Entities like Sky Zone Franchising LLC or UATP Management LLC. In the Damion Collins v. Urban Air arbitration, a $15.6 million award was issued, and the franchisor was held responsible for 40% of the fault because of its systemic failure to implement safety standards.
- The Corporate Parent: Sky Zone, Inc. or Unleashed Brands.
- The Private Equity Sponsor: Firms like Palladium Equity Partners or Seidler Equity Partners who often approve the cost-cutting measures that lead to understaffing.
We discover every layer of insurance: primary GL, umbrellas, excess policies, and the franchisor’s additional-insured coverage. We’ve gone toe-to-toe with corporate titans like BP and Walmart. We will not be intimidated by a trampoline park’s fleet of defense lawyers.
Frequently Asked Questions for Village of Salado Families
Can I sue if I signed a waiver?
Yes. As discussed, Texas law provides multiple attack vectors. Between the gross-negligence carve-out in Moriel, the fair-notice requirements in Dresser, and the minor-protection rules in Munoz, that piece of paper is rarely the end of the case. We have handled numerous cases where a signed waiver did not prevent a multi-million-dollar recovery.
How much is my trampoline injury case worth?
The value depends on the severity of the injury and the evidence of negligence. National industry data shows settlements ranging from $50,000 for simple fractures to over $15 million for permanent paralysis. Our life-care planners and economists calculate the cost of your child’s needs over their entire lifetime—not just the initial hospital bill.
What if the park says it doesn’t have video of the accident?
We don’t take “no” for an answer. When a park claims video is “unavailable,” we demand the DVR hardware and the access logs. If they destroyed video after being put on notice, we seek a “spoliation instruction,” which tells the jury to assume the video would have proved the park was at fault. We remember the Mathew Knight case in Georgia, where a jury awarded $3.5 million after the defense surveillance video glitched on four cameras simultaneously at the moment of injury.
How long do I have to sue a trampoline park in Texas?
The standard statute of limitations for personal injury in Texas is two years. However, for a minor child, the clock is “tolled” and does not begin until they turn 18. This means they effectively have until their 20th birthday to file. But wait! While the legal deadline may be years away, the evidence deadline is weeks away. Surveillance video, staff statements, and equipment conditions disappear within days. You must act now to preserve the case.
Does it cost anything to hire Attorney911?
No upfront fees. We work on a contingency basis, meaning we only get paid if we win your case. We advance all costs for world-class experts—biomechanical engineers, pediatric orthopedic consultants, and life-care planners. Your family’s recovery fund stays untouched while we fight the corporate lawyers.
Why Choose Attorney911 for Your Village of Salado Case?
When you call our firm, you are not just getting a lawyer; you are getting a system built for this specific fight.
- The Former Defense Edge: Lupe Peña used to represent the insurance companies. He knows exactly which arguments they use to try to throw cases out—and he uses that inside knowledge to stay three steps ahead of them.
- The Fortune 500 Experience: We have litigated cases against the largest corporations in the world. We know how Sky Zone and Urban Air structure their defenses, and we know how to dismantle them.
- The Medical Mastery: From growth-plate injuries to rhabdomyolysis, we speak the language of the surgeons who are treating your child. We don’t just “handle injury cases”—we litigate complex medical trauma.
- The Evidence Discipline: We send our spoliation letters within 24 hours. We know that in the digital age, metadata is the smoking gun. We pull the version history of the waiver you “signed” to see if the park updated it after your child was hurt.
As our client Chad Harris said, “You are NOT a pest to them and you are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” We represent the parent who is sitting in the quiet of a hospital room tonight, wondering how they will pay for the next surgery or why the park manager hasn’t called back. That isn’t a problem for you to solve alone.
Contact our Village of Salado Trampoline Injury Team Today
What happened to your child at the trampoline park wasn’t an accident—it was the result of a system that put margin ahead of safety. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been warning about these hazards since 1999. The industry wrote ASTM F2970 to establish a floor for safety, and the park your family visited chose to operate beneath it.
Your child’s case depends on what gets preserved this week. The DVR overwrites in 7 to 30 days. The waiver kiosk database purges on a rolling cycle. The attendant you saw on their phone will move to another city. We are built for exactly this fight.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 right now. We answer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hablamos Español. No fee unless we win. Our spoliation letter goes out to the park and the franchisor within 24 hours of your call. The road to accountability starts with one phone call.
