A three-year-old girl died and 11 people were injured after a bouncy castle was lifted into the air by a strong gust of wind during a church party at a park in Montreal, Canada

A three-year-old girl died after the bouncy castle she was playing on was snatched into the air by a gust of wind during a party at a Montreal park.

Eleven people were injured with six of them sent to hospital after strong winds tossed the bouncy castle and a tent into the air on May 31 at Parc Ouellet in LaSalle in southwest Montreal, Canada.

Disaster struck at a party held by a church in the city park, as wind speeds reached as high as 31mph (50kph) on Sunday afternoon.

Cathy Denis, who owns a bouncy castle rental company in Quebec, said she doesn’t install or operate the inflatables when forecasts show speeds exceeding 24 mph (38 kmph). She explained that inflatables present a large surface area and sudden gusts can move the structures, even when they are properly installed, making them vulnerable to high winds.

This is not the first time such a tragedy has occurred. In 2022, an eight-year-old girl died from her injuries after strong winds blew a bouncy castle several metres into the air during a fair in Mislata, near Valencia, Spain. Eight other children were injured, some requiring hospital treatment.

In 2021, six children died and three others were seriously injured after a gust of wind lifted a jumping castle about 10 metres into the air during an end-of-year celebration at Hillcrest Primary School in Devonport, on Australia’s island state of Tasmania.

In 2017, Spanish police said a six-year-old girl died and six other children were injured when an inflatable bouncy castle came free from its stakes and flew into the air in Caldes de Malavella, in northeastern Spain, hurling the children to the ground. Investigators examined whether the accident was caused by anchoring failures or equipment malfunction.

Coroner Martine Lachance has been assigned to investigate the causes and circumstances surrounding the death. Health Canada advises operators of inflatable structures to securely anchor them to the ground to prevent them from moving, tipping over, or lifting into the air.

In the UK the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says no inflatable should be used in winds above 24mph (38kph). “When the inflatable is being operated outside, use an anemometer to measure the wind speed at regular intervals. If one of these is not available, the inflatable should not be operated outside,” the body says on its website.

A 2013 study published by the Public Health Agency of Canada identified 674 injuries associated with inflatable attractions reported through the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program between 1990 and 2009. Children between the ages of two and nine accounted for the largest share of injuries, while fractures represented more than one-third of reported cases.