June 6, 2001
Class provides cautionary look before leaping
Gymnastics club sponsors Trampoline Safety clinic
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Reflecting a growing popularity nationwide, trampolines are springing up in backyards around the area with users of all ages enjoying airborne antics and exercise.
Sounding a cautionary note to balance the sweeping enthusiasm, staff members at Water's Edge Gymnastics said that safety is a key to using this piece of recreational equipment. Multiple bouncers at a time, storing items under a trampoline, inadequate training or spotting and bouncing too high or doing flips are just some of the things that can turn a fun time into a tragedy.
Indeed, estimates from the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1998 found 95,000 hospital emergency room-treated injuries associated with trampolines. About 75 percent of the victims are under 15 years of age and ten percent are under five years of age. Six accidents since 1990 have been fatal.
Because of these statistics, Water's Edge staff decided to offer an eight-week Trampoline Safety class to teach both parents and kids how to use their trampoline safely.
During the class, coaches Pat Varley and Michael Hinojosa guide their four students through the basics of falling, tumbling, stopping and controlling their movements. While they do not encourage students to do flips on a trampoline, they put the students into a harness suspended from the ceiling so they can practice turning and being upside-down in a controlled environment.
"Most people when they are upside-down get disoriented and can get injured," Varley said. "The harness helps them learn to stay in control."
In the class, students also learn limits to what they can do on the trampoline and parents are encouraged to set - and enforce - rules for trampoline usage.
"Our goal is to train users in such a way as to not get hurt," said Varley, a gymnastics coach for more than 20 years. "We teach them to fly through the air, and with a trampoline that's what it is all about. We teach them to protect their head and neck and drill them on techniques to take it beyond the intellectual into the realm of reflex."
Some of the reflexes needed to fall safely on a trampoline directly contradict human nature. For example, when falling it is instinctive to put out the arms to protect the face but Varley said it is better to fall with the hands and arms tucked in, rolling with the fall. He drills students on falling forwards and backwards, teaching them how to do it safely.
"We teach the kids to trust the equipment to save you instead of sticking their arms or neck out," he said.
Concerns about safety motivated Laura Froese to enroll her son, Kyle, 6, into the Trampoline Safety class.
"The reason we took it was we had just set up our backyard trampoline and wanted to make sure that Kyle got all the safety measures that he needed," Froese said.
In her backyard, they are strict rules on trampoline usage that apply to both her own children and neighbors or friends who come to play. Asking permission to play on it is the first step because no one is allowed to jump unsupervised.
"We put a ring of tape around the inside perimeter, one for Kyle to stay in and one for Andrew, our three year old, to stay in," she added. "No flips at all and only one kid at a time."
This one bouncer at a time is crucial to safety, Varley said. So often he will see multiple kids bouncing at one time on a backyard trampoline, which is a recipe for injury.
"One of the most frequent ways that people get injured is to have more than one person on it," Varley said. "Kids who have trampolines in their backyards are used to going out with their five friends, they don't always want to hear that they shouldn't do that."
Mary Jo Wahba has seen her five-year-old son, Ibrahim's, confidence in all areas of gymnastics grow during the class, an unanticipated benefit that will also make him safer on the trampoline.
"I really feel more confident with him using our trampoline now, Coach Pat said this class has impacted his other skills," Wahba said. "I just wanted him to be aware more safety techniques so he would not get injured."