Two little boys are hospitalized after falling about 20 feet when a strong wind swept their backyard bounce house into the air in upstate New York.
The small inflatable was staked to the ground when a gust suddenly uprooted it Monday afternoon, South Glens Falls Police said.
A third child, a 10-year-old girl, also was inside the bounce house but only suffered scrapes and a minor injury to her shoulder, her family told NBC affiliate WNYT.
“It was like a horror movie,” Taylor Seymour, the sister of the injured girl, told the Glens Falls Post-Star. “It just kept going up and up. It cleared our building and the trees.”
A 6-year-old boy tumbled out and landed in the street. A 5-year-old ended up in an apartment building parking lot.
"He hit his head on the back of my car and then he fell to the ground," Seymour said of the 5-year-old.
Both were in serious condition when they were airlifted to Albany Medical Center, police said. Their names and injuries were not released.
"Although the investigation is continuing, the incident is considered a tragic accident and no charges are pending," police said.
WNYT reported that after the boys fell out, the bounce house continued to float in the air, eventually landing in the field behind a local school.
Neighbors told WNYT that the man who owned the bounce house felt terrible about what happened. His children were not the ones playing on it at the time.
"I actually watched the fellow that put it up and he staked it and he did everything correctly," Stephanie Hansen, who called 911, told the station. "All the kids were having fun until they screamed to me to come down and I saw that."
— Tracy Connor
