A five-year-old boy from La Plata, Maryland, is dead after a “wind gust” took a bounce house with children inside “airborne,” according to local authorities.
Officials from Charles County revealed in a press release that a bounce house full of children at a Southern Maryland Blue Crabs (SMBC) baseball game on Friday was lifted roughly “15 to 20 feet” off the ground and eventually landed on the baseball field. Another child, whose age and gender were not made available, was reported to have sustained “non-life-threatening injuries.”
“We extend our deepest empathy to the children and their families during this difficult time,” Ruben B. Collins II, the president of the Board of County Commissioners for Charles County, said in the statement. “We thank our EMS team and the Maryland State Police for their swift actions to ensure the children received immediate care.”
As the bounce house was taken airborne, children started falling out before the bounce house landed on the field, according to the press release.
Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel from Charles County who had been at the game, along with first responders attending the game and trainers for the baseball team stepped in to offer “patient care,” according to the press release.
Witnesses told NBC Washington that the bounce house, which had been set up at the game in order to provide entertainment to the children, was “secured by stakes hammered into the ground.”
The SMBC issued a statement that it was postponing Saturday’s game as well as Sunday’s game.
“Our entire organization shares our condolences with the family mourning the loss of a child, and concern for the child who was injured,” Courtney Knichel, the General Manager for the SMBC baseball team said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.