A birthday party at a family entertainment center should be a place where kids can run, play, and have fun while parents trust that the activities around them are being properly maintained and supervised.
For one family, that trust was shattered when their young daughter jumped from a platform onto an inflatable jump pad that had lost so much air it could no longer safely catch her. Instead of landing on a properly inflated surface, she sank hard into the bottom of the pad and immediately cried out in pain.
She couldn't move, and there were no employees nearby to help.
Her mother was forced to leave her injured daughter's side and search through the building for an employee who could call 911. Emergency responders ultimately had to treat the child inside the inflatable area before they could safely remove her. She was later diagnosed with serious fractures in her leg.
What happened that afternoon became much more than a painful injury. It changed this child's daily life and left her parents searching for answers about why the equipment and activity weren't being properly monitored.
A Serious Injury Changed Her Everyday Life
Before the injury, this young girl was active. She ran, danced, played, and enjoyed the freedom most children take for granted.
Suddenly, she was facing orthopedic appointments, using a wheelchair, and going through a long and painful recovery. The activities she enjoyed were put on hold, and she had to watch from the sidelines while her body healed.
Her parents were also trying to understand how an activity specifically offered to children could result in such a serious injury without a staff member nearby to respond.
When they reached out to The Button Law Firm, they weren't looking to create conflict. They wanted to understand what had happened to their daughter and whether the facility could have prevented it.
Our Investigation Uncovered Larger Safety Concerns
Our team began investigating the equipment, supervision, and circumstances surrounding the injury. As the case developed, we learned that the facility wanted to characterize what happened as an accident or place responsibility on the child.
The evidence told a different story.
Through discovery, we uncovered prior incidents involving children and safety concerns at the facility. That history raised important questions about what the venue knew and what it had done to make its activities safer.
An activity that allows children to jump from a platform onto inflatable equipment requires attention to the condition of that equipment and what is happening around it. In this case, the jump pad had lost a significant amount of air, and there was no staff member nearby when this child was seriously injured.
Those facts helped us build a clearer picture of why this wasn't simply an unavoidable injury.
Showing the Full Impact of Her Injury
Understanding what happened was only one part of representing this family. We also wanted to make sure the case reflected what the injury actually took from their daughter.
Her recovery wasn't limited to medical appointments or the fractures themselves. For a child who was used to running, dancing, and playing, suddenly relying on a wheelchair and being unable to participate in normal activities was a major change.
Our team documented her medical treatment, but we also paid attention to the parts of recovery that don't appear on a medical bill: the activities she missed, the milestones that had to wait, the frustration of losing her independence, and the emotional toll of spending so much time on the sidelines.
Those details mattered because they told the full story of what this preventable injury meant for this child and her family.
Holding the Facility Accountable
As we continued developing the case, the facility's prior safety concerns became an important part of understanding what happened. When children have already been injured, businesses responsible for high-risk activities have an opportunity to learn from those incidents and strengthen the safeguards designed to prevent them from happening again.
This family deserved to know why stronger protections weren't in place before their daughter was hurt.
Our team held the facility accountable for the safety failures that contributed to her injury and secured a life-changing result for the family. That result gave them resources to support their daughter's recovery while providing the accountability they had been searching for since the day she was injured.
Helping Families Move Forward
Parents should be able to take their children to birthday parties, family entertainment centers, and other activities without discovering too late that basic safety measures weren't being followed.
When a child is seriously injured because a business failed to protect them, families deserve answers about what happened and why.
At The Button Law Firm, we represent kids in daycare and child injury cases to help them get life-changing results and justice against bad daycares, schools, and companies that abuse and neglect the safety of children.
If your child was seriously injured because a business failed to keep them safe, call (214) 699-4409, email intake@buttonlawfirm.com, or fill out the contact form on our website to share your story or experience with our team.
