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Several injured after wind flipped and carried a bounce house down a football field

Posted at 4:52 PM, May 02, 2019
and last updated 2019-05-02 17:52:40-04

High school students were caught inside an inflatable bounce house after it was lifted and flipped by strong wind.

The accident happened at a student council event at Zillah High School in southern Washington on Wednesday afternoon. Five students were injured, according to the Zillah School District.

"Everybody was having a good time, all the students, and out of nowhere we saw the bouncy house go up pretty high in the air and it came down and hit the cement," Zillah sophomore Christopher Molina told CNN affiliate KXLY .

Wind lifted the bounce house 15 to 20 feet in the air and carried it 247 feet down the football field, according to CNN affiliate KVEW

Molina noticed one woman trapped in the bounce house, so he ran to help her.

"I jumped over it and I pulled the string and I untied her. She was stuck to something and it was bending her knee back and I took her off and she got free and she is OK now," Molina said.

One of the students was transported to Astria Regional Medical Center in Yakima with critical injuries and the others suffered minor injuries, Zillah Mayor Scott Carmack told CNN affiliate KVEW . A teacher performed CPR on one of the injured students before an ambulance arrived, Carmack said.

He added that one of the five involved may have been injured before the bounce house flipped over.

Blake Larson, owner of Bounce N Party Rentals in Spokane, said he has never had anyone injured during his two years in the business.

"Each bounce house is a little different but there is printed rules on each one for you to look at," Larson told KXLY. "There's different things you want to do, make sure you're using stakes or weights to weigh it down and straps to tie it down."

It is unclear what caused the bounce house to go airborne.