Kids injured as playhouse swept 50ft into air

Two young boys who fell from an inflatable bouncy house as it was swept skyward by gusty winds in upstate New York remained hospitalised in stable condition, one in a medically induced coma with a head injury, according to police.

A girl, age 10, and the boys, ages 5 and 6, were playing in the 10ftx10ft roofless nylon playhouse at a South Glens Falls townhouse community when the 38lb Little Tikes toy product broke loose from plastic anchoring stakes, local police said.

According to witnesses, the bouncy house continued to elevate into the sky and may have reached heights of over 50 feet in the air.

Commercial bouncy houses rented for parties and other events are made of heavy vinyl, weigh 200 to 250lbs and are secured by 18-inch steel stakes.

The girl fell out immediately and suffered minor scrapes, but the boys didn’t tumble out until the playhouse was 15 feet in the air.

Police chief Kevin Judd told the Glens Falls Post Star that one boy hit a parked car as he fell and suffered a serious head injury.

The other has broken arms and several broken facial bones. They were airlifted to Albany Medical Centre.

One witness said: “It dropped off the first little kid in the middle of the road, then it came the other way, it passed over my apartment, it dropped the second one, he hit his head on the back of my car and then he fell to the ground,”

The police chief said an investigation was continuing but no charges were likely to be filed.

He called what happened a “tragic accident”.