A Sherwood Park teen is seeking $15.4 million after he broke his neck doing a front flip into a foam pit at Jump Park Trampoline.
“First jump in, my life changed immediately,” said Landon Smith, who suffered a spinal cord injury at the Sherwood Park facility early last year. “As soon as I jumped in I could feel the concrete. It felt like spinal shock, like two cymbals hit me in the head.”
READ MORE: Sherwood Park teen breaks his neck at trampoline park
Smith was at a birthday party when it happened.
“(I) couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, kind of like being under frozen ice,” he described.
Smith said it took 10 to 15 minutes before two members of the group he was with found him.
“It felt like hours,” he said. “I thought I was going to die.”
The once active, independent 19-year-old is paralyzed from the chest down. He spent more than seven months at the University of Alberta Hospital and the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.
“One of the hardest things is actually relying on people. It takes a huge toll on my family. It’s a full-time job pretty much,” he said.
In a lawsuit filed in October against the jump park, Smith is seeking $15 million for loss of income, loss of earning capacity and cost of care. Another $400,000 is being sought for pain and suffering.
Smith’s parents are also each seeking $350,000.
In a statement of defence filed with the court, Jump Park Trampoline denies any wrongdoing and said Smith signed a waiver.
In the statement, the company admitted that Smith was involved in an incident that day but “…deny that Landon struck his head on the concrete floor, felt his neck break on impact, and/or suffered paralysis as a result of the accident, as alleged or at all.”
The statement goes on to say the employees exercised reasonable care, caution and skill in managing the property and the foam pit “was in a safe and appropriate condition for use by members of the public, including Landon at the material time.”
Lawyers said it could take years for the case to be heard in court.
For now, Smith is focused on his own recovery. He has been going to rehab three times a week and this weekend he is travelling to the United States to take part in the Schwann Cell Clinical Trial. It means he could spend 10 months in Miami receiving treatment in hopes of a full recovery.
“That wheelchair isn’t my life. There’s no way,” Smith said.
Data collected by Alberta Health Services shows Albertans have made 8,001 trampoline-related visits to emergency departments and urgent-care centres between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2017. That works out to an average of 222 per month. A closer look at visits just between November to April over those three years shows the average number of visits shoots up to 469 per month.
While the data doesn’t specify how many visits stem from indoor incidents versus outdoors, an official with the University of Alberta’s Injury Prevention Centre said they assumed most of these injuries happened indoors during those months because of how cold Alberta gets in the winter.
“I think it’s better to avoid them,” said Kathy Belton, associate director of the University of Alberta’s Injury Prevention Centre. “I think the only safe place to use a trampoline would be in a gymnastics class with professionals showing you how to use it and how to use it safely.
“One of the biggest issues I have with trampoline parks is that the people that are going there don’t necessarily have the knowledge and skills to use them safely,” she added. “The foam pits and stuff like that are just a recipe for disaster if you have more than one person in them and if the person is not using them correctly.”
Belton added there’s a fine line between finding fun ways to be active and putting yourself at risk.
-With files from Phil Heidenreich
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