I confess to being reassured that several people in the Ready Steady Cut Reddit community found the premise of Netflix’s The Accident to be as silly and unintentionally hilarious as I did. But a couple of comments gave me pause. The Accident isn’t based on a true story directly, but something very much like the disaster at its core really did happen.
User Potatosmom94 pointed out that in Australia, five kids were killed in Australia when a sudden gust of wind hoisted a bouncy castle into the air:
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The catalyzing event in The Accident is exactly this — an inflatable bounce house, improperly secured to the ground, being lifted into the air by unexpectedly inclement weather, resulting in the deaths of several children. The comment above shares a link to a YouTube video of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) reporting on the tragedy:
This is obviously a terrible thing. There’s no indication that the creator of the Netflix series, Leonardo Padrón, took direct inspiration from it, though one must consider the possibility. Either way, though, it gives a slightly sinister veneer of legitimacy to the show’s plot.
So, do I feel bad about finding the idea hilarious in my review of The Accident? Not really, no, and plenty in the Reddit thread thought similarly.
The fact that such an event may be possible does not, at least to me, prevent the show’s depiction of the event from being thoroughly ridiculous and, yes, hysterical. It’s silly from top to bottom, from basic overacting to more logical points that were pointed out in the thread, such as the fact nobody found that kind of wind to be concerning and nobody tried to hold the bouncy castle down when it started drifting off.
But the fact this happened at all in real life is pretty concerning. It gave me cause to look into the matter a little further, and I was shocked to discover that apparently, inflatable bounce houses are a menace.
According to Today, inflatables like this have “killed dozens and injured hundreds”. The article cites a report conducted by the University of Georgia which refers to several alarming incidents of wind-related bounce house deaths, including the one mentioned above. Others include:
Three children in El Paso, Texas, were injured when a dust devil picked up a bounce house and sent it flying above several other houses in the neighborhood. A bounce house in Pasadena, California, was blown around during Rose Bowl festivities, injuring many, and another bounce house with a child inside blew onto a highway in Adelanto, California, hurting the child and causing an automobile crash.
Thomas Gill, Ph.D., a professor of environmental science at the University of Texas at El Paso and co-author of the study, continued:
“The last fatal accident involving wind and a bounce house happened in 2019 in Reno, Nevada, when winds lifted up a jumping castle with three children inside and into electrical power lines, injuring two of the kids and killing a 9-year-old girl.”
And it isn’t just wind you have to worry about. Naturally, injuries can occur when children knock into or fall onto one another, but there’s also a chance that a bounce house can deflate or collapse, suffocating its occupants. There’s also a heat problem. The research shows that bounce houses can reach extreme temperatures that result in dehydration, heat exhaustion, and even literal burns.
I should stress again that Netflix’s The Accident is not a true story and shouldn’t be taken as such. Padrón wasn’t trying to create a PSA about the varied dangers of inflatables, but instead a poignant story about grief, loss, and fury in the aftermath of a tragedy. He arguably succeeded at neither, but it’s worth noting that, if the effort was to really address the potential dangers of inflatable bounce houses, the depiction probably wouldn’t have been quite so ridiculous.
But now you know, I guess.
