Local Maryland officials say one child was killed and another was injured after a wind gust blew a bounce house into the air at a baseball game.

One child was killed and another was injured after a wind gust blew a bounce house into the air at a baseball game in Maryland on Friday night, local officials said.

Local emergency personnel received a call in Waldorf, Maryland, at about 9:21 p.m. Friday from the Regency Furniture Stadium reporting that a moon bounce house became airborne because of a wind gust while children were inside.

At the time, the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs minor league baseball team was playing a game, and “the moon bounce was carried approximately 15 to 20 feet up in the air, causing children to fall before it landed on the playing field,” according to a news release from the Charles County government posted on its website.

A 5-year-old boy from La Plata, Maryland, was flown to Children’s National Hospital in Washington, where he was later pronounced dead, the release said. A second child also was flown out by Maryland State Police with non-life-threatening injuries.

  • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    There are 2 issues.

    1. bounce houses aren’t really a necessary thing for the risk. We aren’t banning “everything” just bounce houses which are used only a lil. That’s actually what bans are perfect for - small, niche items that aren’t popular. Bans become ineffective if what you’re banning is already popular, eg alcohol. Alcohol is also something you can make at home. You can’t make a bounce house at home. A ban is an appropriate suggestion here.

    2. hierarchy of controls. The very things that make bounce houses appealing are what make them dangerous and we rely on people to make them safe, notoriously unsafe thing in the hierarchy of controls.

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
      11·
      3 months ago

      Bounce houses are super popular. If you have kids, it seems like they are everywhere. And people could make them at home if they wanted. Nothing requires complex manufacturing. But they are easier to buy. And people do. I had a small one that I only used indoors for my son that I got on Amazon. If they were banned, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. And why, because others misused them. So I would be punished for other people irresponsibility.
      That would set a legal precedent. And some judge would decide where to draw the line. It would end up being that politics would define what gets banned and what doesn’t. Like stimulants. Some people rely on them to function. But others want them banned because people abuse them, and can die from overdoses and such. Right now we are in the middle ground, they aren’t banned, but the barriers for people who need them mean many go without, and suffer because of it. Once we set the legal precedent with bounce houses, stimulants would be easy to ban.