EXTREME SCARE
Mother terrified after three-year-old falls to the ground at trampoline park where Victoria man died in January
A mother wants better safety protocols at a Richmond trampoline park after her three-year-old son fell through a trampoline during a friend’s birthday party Saturday afternoon.
The “terrifying” incident happened at Extreme Air Park, the same facility where a Victoria man died after jumping into a foam pit in January.
“I don’t want this to happen to someone else’s child,” mother Ravi Gill-Douglas told Postmedia News.
“What if he had landed on his head? What if his friend hadn’t seen him fall? One second he was there, and the next second, he was gone.”
Gill-Douglas was watching her son play on several small trampolines when she was momentarily distracted by a staff member who asked her to buy a pair of socks.
When she turned around, he was gone.
Gill-Douglas later learned the little boy had been standing on the padding that covers the trampoline springs when he somehow slipped through.
She said he fell almost two metres onto a hard floor. One of his friends saw him disappear and ran to tell her.
“If this little girl hadn’t seen him, I would have thought he had been kidnapped,” she said. “He was calling for us, but there was no way to see him or hear him. We would have been searching the whole facility.”
Gill-Douglas and several other parents rushed onto the trampolines. One of the men began pulling the padding away. As the adults peered into the gap between the springs, they saw the little boy standing in the dark, covered in dust.
But there was no way to reach him.
As soon as she realized what had happened, Sophia McHardy — who was hosting the birthday party — ran to the front desk for help, where she was told no one had ever fallen beneath the trampolines before.
“The woman just stood there,” McHardy said. “I expected her to come running out, to know what to do.”
As McHardy ran back to the trampoline, her husband Jamie laid flat and extended his arms to the stranded three-year-old, who stood on tiptoe to grasp the lifeline.
“He was covered in dust and holding his head,” recalled Gill-Douglas.
She took her son to a bench and held him.
The front desk attendant came over and conducted a first aid exam, checking his limbs and head before clearing him to jump again.
“He was in shock (and) his eyes were dilated,” his mother said.
“He went out again, but then he stopped and said he didn’t want to jump anymore.”
Meanwhile, the McHardys were quizzing staff about safety protocols.
They said the front desk attendant told them she didn’t have a key to the area beneath the trampolines and firefighters would need to help if someone was trapped. The gap between the springs was too small to fit an adult.
The decision was made to call an ambulance. At Richmond Hospital, a doctor examined the boy and cleared him.
In the days since, both families have been trying to get answers from Extreme Air Park, as well as various levels of government.
Trampoline parks are not regulated in Canada.
Both were shocked to learn about the death of Jay Greenwood, who died Jan. 20 after falling into the foam pit at the same facility.
RCMP claimed the 46-yearold father of three was performing a series of acrobatic manoeuvres before a fall that caused severe injury and cardiac arrest. Witnesses said his daughter told front desk staff that her dad was stuck and not breathing, while people who did not know about the incident continued to jump. Strangers tried to help the family.
Greenwood’s wife, Tanya Hayes, has filed a civil suit in B.C. Supreme Court claiming the park was negligent.
In an emailed statement about Saturday’s incident, Extreme Air Park said “we understand the child was in an area he should not have been but was quickly retrieved and without injury. Our team responded quickly and we are happy the child is safe and uninjured.”
Gill-Douglas was upset by the statement, explaining that her three-year-old son was supervised and following the rules.
“It’s a blatant lie,” she said, adding “he wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
She wants the province to move quickly to ensure no one else is injured at a trampoline park in B.C.
The City of Richmond has forwarded a motion to the upcoming Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting asking the provincial government to regulate trampoline parks, with regulatory responsibility for the “safe installation and operation” of all parks assumed by Technical Safety B.C.
The motion includes a letter from Vancouver Coastal Health chief medical health officer Patricia Daly, who said “trampoline parks in B.C. and Canada fall into a regulatory vacuum.”