Swirling wind swept a trampoline into the air and over a fence as a 4-year-old girl was jumping on it, knocking her unconscious and breaking her arm and pelvis, witnesses told police.
Grace Hove was hospitalized after Sunday's freak accident with the broken bones as well as a dislocated jaw and bruises to a lung and kidney, her mother said.
"She's expected to make a full recovery," Rae Hove said Monday. "Thank God. It could have been worse."
Witnesses, including two adults, reported the trampoline was lifted as high as 25 feet, Sheriff's Capt. Bob Stancel said.
"One man saw the whirlwind, then he saw the trampoline fly up into his view," Stancel said. "He said it was as high as the trees."
The trampoline landed partly on a highway with the girl pinned underneath, he said.
The swirling wind might have been a "dust devil," a localized, spinning pocket of air, said Jim Assid, a National Weather Service technician.
Such meteorological oddities can occur when air heated by the ground rises rapidly through the cool air above it, Assid said.
Dust devils as large as 10 feet wide and 13 miles tall have been documented, he said.