Number of children being injured on trampolines has spiked 4% in a decade

A dental nurse said she experienced the ‘worst pain’ of her life after she broke her back at a trampoline park.

Lucy Jones, 19, joined three friends for the post-Christmas get together at Flip Out Chester, which describes itself as ‘the world’s biggest and best trampoline theme park’, in January 2018.

Ms Jones, of Northop, Flintshire, North Wales, who said she planned to sue the park for negligence and breach of statutory duty, claims she was injured jumping from the four-metre Tower Jump into a foam pit.

Three other people also claim to have broken their backs on the jump. 

She said: ‘As I screamed in agony, my friends rushed over to help me. 

‘I landed in a seating position, as we’d been told to do. But, when I landed, I felt the worst pain I have ever been through in my whole life. For a while, I couldn’t breathe or feel anything,’ she said.

An X-ray revealed a fractured vertebra in her spine – a broken back. The next morning, Ms Jones needed a five-hour operation to fit rods into her back, enabling it to heal.

Ms Jones was eventually discharged from hospital after five days of rehabilitation.

‘That was probably the hardest time for me. I was trying to be positive, but I was basically housebound for four months,’ she said.

‘I became depressed and started thinking about how unfair it was what had happened to me.

‘It shouldn’t have happened, I shouldn’t have broken my back.’