Trampolines are common in Calgary backyards, recreation facilities, and indoor adventure parks. Although often treated as ordinary play equipment, a mistimed landing or collision can result in a serious personal injury.
Recent Alberta health data highlights the scale of the risk. Trampoline injuries have accounted for more than 12,000 emergency room and urgent care visits in Alberta since 2021. In 2025 alone, there were 2,307 trampoline-related visits, including 2,048 involving children and teenagers.
When someone is seriously injured on a trampoline, questions may arise about how the accident happened, whether reasonable precautions were taken, and whether another person or organization contributed to the injury.
Trampoline Injuries Can Be More Serious Than Expected
Common trampoline injuries include fractures, sprains, dislocations, cuts, and head injuries. Alberta emergency physicians have also reported treating skull fractures, bleeding around the brain, and injuries caused by unsafe or improperly installed equipment. Spinal cord injuries and paralysis, although less common, can also occur.
Children may be particularly vulnerable, especially when jumping with older or heavier users. Children between five and nine have the highest rate of Alberta emergency and urgent care visits associated with trampoline use.
How Trampoline Accidents Commonly Happen
Many injuries occur when more than one person is jumping. The movement of one user can alter the surface beneath another, making landings difficult to control. Smaller children may also be unexpectedly launched when a larger person lands nearby.
Flips and somersaults can lead to head, neck, shoulder, or spinal injuries. Other accidents occur when users fall from the trampoline, strike exposed springs or frames, or collide with another jumper.
Equipment problems may also contribute. Nets, padding, frames, springs, mats, and support legs can become damaged or deteriorate, particularly when equipment remains outside through changing Alberta weather.
Backyard Trampolines and Property Owner Responsibilities
A trampoline injury at a private residence does not automatically make the homeowner legally responsible. Liability generally depends on whether reasonable care was taken and whether a failure to do so contributed to the injury.
Alberta’s Occupiers’ Liability Act generally requires people responsible for premises to take reasonable care to keep visitors reasonably safe. In a backyard trampoline case, relevant factors may include whether the equipment was properly assembled and maintained, whether known defects were repaired, whether young users were supervised, and whether the trampoline was positioned near other hazards.
Supervision May Become an Important Issue
Adult supervision cannot prevent every trampoline accident, but it may be relevant when young children are involved or when unsafe behaviour is permitted. Questions may arise where children of significantly different ages and sizes jump together, or where adults allow flips, roughhousing, pushing, or other risky behaviour.
Injuries can occur even with adult supervision, and safety nets do not prevent every accident. Multiple jumpers, flips, hard landings, falls, and pushing are among the common circumstances associated with injuries.
Injuries at Trampoline Parks
Indoor trampoline parks raise different considerations because commercial operators control the equipment, facility layout, operating rules, staffing, and inspection procedures.
Following an accident, an investigation may consider whether equipment was appropriately inspected and repaired, safety rules were enforced, users were separated where appropriate, and sufficiently trained staff were present.
Facility design may also be relevant, including the placement and condition of padding, barriers, foam pits, platforms, and transitions between activity areas. The Canadian Paediatric Society reports that children injured at trampoline parks are more likely to be admitted to hospital than children injured on home trampolines.
Do Waivers Prevent Trampoline Injury Claims?
Commercial trampoline facilities commonly require participants or parents to sign waivers. A waiver can become an important issue in a personal injury claim, but its existence does not necessarily resolve every legal question.
The wording and presentation of the agreement may need to be reviewed, including whether the rights being released were clearly explained and whether the accident falls within the risks addressed by the waiver.
Additional issues may arise when the injured participant is a child. The effect of any waiver will depend on its wording and the surrounding circumstances.
Product Defects and Improper Installation
Some trampoline accidents may involve defective equipment or improper installation rather than, or in addition to, the conduct of a homeowner or facility operator.
Manufacturers, retailers, distributors, or installers may become relevant where injuries are linked to defective springs, torn mats, unstable frames, failed enclosures, exposed posts, or inadequate assembly and safety instructions.
Determining whether equipment was defective may require photographs, maintenance and purchase records, technical analysis, and an inspection. Damaged equipment should generally be preserved until the circumstances have been documented.
What Compensation May Address
A trampoline injury can have consequences well beyond the initial emergency room visit. Fractures may require surgery, casting, physiotherapy, and months of restricted activity, while head or spinal injuries can affect education, employment, mobility, independence, and long-term care needs.
Depending on the circumstances, a personal injury claim may address pain and suffering, treatment and rehabilitation costs, lost income, reduced earning capacity, and future care expenses. Claims involving children can be particularly complex because the full long-term effects of an injury may not be immediately apparent.
Preserving Evidence After a Trampoline Accident
Evidence can change or disappear quickly after an accident. Equipment may be repaired, moved, dismantled, or exposed to further weather, while surveillance video at commercial facilities may be deleted through routine retention practices.
Photographs of the trampoline and surrounding area can document netting, padding, warning signs, surface conditions, and possible defects. Witness names and contact information may also be valuable.
At a trampoline park, incident reports, inspection records, employee notes, video footage, and waiver documents may help establish what occurred. Prompt medical attention is also important, particularly where head, neck, back, or neurological injuries are suspected.
Time Limits Can Affect Alberta Injury Claims
Alberta’s Limitations Act establishes deadlines for commencing civil claims. In many cases, a claimant has two years from when they knew, or reasonably ought to have known, that an injury occurred, that it was attributable to another person’s conduct, and that legal proceedings were warranted.
Different rules can apply to children and people who lack capacity. The applicable deadline may also depend on the proposed defendant and the circumstances of the case. Because evidence can disappear long before a limitation period expires, an early review can help preserve records and identify potentially responsible parties.
Cuming & Gillespie LLP: Calgary Personal Injury Lawyers for Serious Recreational and Trampoline Accidents
A serious trampoline accident can leave an injured child or adult facing surgery, rehabilitation, missed work, and uncertainty about the future. Determining whether compensation may be available can require a review of the equipment, property conditions, supervision, facility procedures, waiver documents, and insurance coverage.
The dynamic personal injury lawyers at Cuming & Gillespie LLP represent injured people and families in Calgary and throughout Alberta. We can review the circumstances of a backyard trampoline accident, recreation facility injury, trampoline park incident, or defective equipment claim and explain the legal options that may be available. Contact us online or call (403) 571-0555 to arrange a free, confidential consultation on your personal injury matter.