Trampoline Warning

If you're looking for another "trampolines can be dangerous" story, read on.

Fortunately it wasn't that serious. During our son's backyard birthday barbeque, one of our friends' daughters pulled the ligaments in her ankle. She was jumping on the trampoline with a larger child (he's probably twice her weight), and she landed awkwardly because of the movement of the jumping surface. Had she been jumping with someone her size it probably wouldn't have happened.

A point to consider is that she's about 35 pounds, and the trampoline has a weight capacity of 200 pounds. As a result she wasn't big enough to generate much instability by herself, and had she been jumping with another preschooler, they probably would have been OK. However for the older child, given his weight and ability to move the canvas, my opinion is that jumping alone would have been only safe option.

Up until now our rule has been three kids or fewer on the trampoline, but from this point forward, we're going to reduce that as necessary, based on the weight of each jumper.