source : the age
Three young children have been taken to hospital after powerful winds lifted a jumping castle into the air in Sydney’s inner south.
Emergency services were called to Gardiner Park in Banksia, about 12 kilometres south of the CBD, about 1.20pm on Saturday, after the jumping castle became airborne, a NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said. The children were taken to Sydney Children’s Hospital after being treated by paramedics at the scene.
A preschool-aged boy and girl suffered head injuries while a baby was treated for minor injuries. A woman was also taken to hospital with minor injuries, the spokeswoman said. All three children were in a stable condition.
This was the second incident involving an airborne jumping castle recorded in a matter of hours on Saturday. Two children were injured at a party near Geelong in Victoria that morning. Both children were taken to hospital with injuries to their upper bodies and were in a stable condition.
The temperature in Sydney hovered about 30 degrees, accompanied by strong north-westerly winds, with recorded peak gusts surpassing 60km/h on Saturday afternoon. The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for damaging winds, with peak gusts of up to 100km/h expected across parts of NSW.
The injuries came five years after the Hillcrest Primary School tragedy, in which six children died after a jumping castle at the primary school fete was lifted into the air and thrown 75 metres by a “mini tornado” during a freak weather event in Tasmania.
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Max Maddison is a state political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.
