Five children hospitalised after jumping castles go airborne in two separate incidents

High wind gusts have left five children in hospital across NSW and Victoria after jumping castles were lifted into the air.

One incident occurred on a private property south-west of Melbourne where two children were rushed to hospital from a little girl’s birthday party.

Emergency services were called to a home on Lower Duneed Road in Mount Duneed shortly before 11am on Saturday.

The primary school aged boy and girl suffered upper body injuries after they were thrown from the inflatable.

They were rushed to Geelong University Hospital where they are in a stable condition.

Numerous other children were playing on the jumping castle at the time but managed to escape without injury.

Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance (MICA) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedic crews were dispatched to treat the injured children at the scene.

In NSW, a very similar incident occurred with three young children taken to hospital after strong winds lifted a jumping castle in the air.

“On our arrival we were presented with five patients, three of whom were paediatric,” Emily Cottman from NSW Ambulance said.

Two four-year-olds suffered minor head injuries and an 18-month-old also injured after the incident at Banksia in Sydney’s inner south.

Today’s accident has sombre echoes to the Hillcrest Primary School jumping castle tragedy in 2021.

Six children were killed at the school in Tasmania during end-of-year celebrations.

The jumping castle was pulled into the air by a sudden mini-tornado on an otherwise calm day. The inflatable travelled 75m in the air.