Fatalities from jumping castle accidents should be preventable, according to injury experts, who say better regulation of safety standards is needed in the wake of Thursday’s tragic incident in Tasmania.
Police are investigating the causes of the incident, including local weather conditions, after a gust of wind lifted the bouncy castle up to 10m into the air. Asked whether the castle was tethered to the ground, authorities said that was part of the investigation.
Prof Rebecca Ivers, head of the school of public health and community medicine at the University of New South Wales, said it was well known that jumping castles were prone to being lifted by wind gusts.
“The tragedy of it is this is not something that we didn’t know about,” she said.
“Things like this should never happen.”
In 2019, two children died when a tornado-like dust devil swept through a fair in China. In 2018, a British couple were convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence after a girl died in a bouncy castle in Norwich.
Data suggests up to 2,200 children in Australia were injured using inflatable jumping castles between 1996 and 2006.
A national standard regulating commercial inflatable jumping castles was introduced in 2005.
It came four years after a South Australian girl died when a jumping castle was ripped from its anchors and lifted into the air. A coronial inquest in 2003 found the inflatable castle’s anchorage system had been inadequate.
The Australian standard – AS 3533.4.1 – contains specific requirements for land-based inflatable devices such as jumping castles, including how many points of fixture are used to anchor them to the ground.
Dr Lisa Sharwood, an injury epidemiologist at the University of Sydney, said regulation of the standard – which is not nationally mandatory – differed between states and had been “quite variable”.
“Mandatory standards are fairly rare for products,” she said, citing enforced regulation of baby walkers as a rare example.
“My hope out of this, at the very least, would be that the standard is mandated around every state and there’s much more rigour.”
Sharwood said issues to be addressed included ensuring imported products met the Australian standard, and whether requirements around weighting, the number of rope attachments and supervision would be made mandatory in future.
Ivers said: “When it comes to preventing the deaths of children, the community is prepared to tolerate a high degree of regulation because we understand how important it is to keep children safe and happy. One great example of that is isolation swimming pool fencing.
“People push back on too much regulation. When it comes to the deaths of children and safety like this, I think we need to start thinking about what really matters to us.”
