Photo: GoFundMe
A Nebraska family’s fun fall trip to a local pumpkin patch turned to tragedy on Wednesday.
Caleb Acuna, 2, and his sister Gabrielle, 5, were jumping on an inflatable bounce pad at JK’s Pumpkin Patch when a strong gust of wind hurled it into the air, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office said in apress release.
The gust occurred just moments after the children’s parents Edward and Berna Acuna climbed off the jack-o-lantern shaped inflatable pad.
Little Caleb, however, got trapped in the pad as it folded in half and carried him for more than 100 feet, Raymond Fire Safety Officer Nick Monnier told theLincoln Journal Star.
Caleb suffered a critical head injury and was rushed to the hospital. The toddler was pronounced dead on Thursday after being taken off life support, theAssociated Pressreported.
“It’s certainly a tragic situation,” Lancaster County Sheriff’s Capt. Tom Brookhouser said, according to the Associated Press. “The sheriff’s office has never worked an incident like this in the 28 years I’ve been here.”
JK’s Pumpkin Patch did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Josh Kadavy who owns the pumpkin patch, which had just added the bounce pad this year, posted a statement on Facebook.
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office has ordered an autopsy as Caleb’s death is still under investigation.
AGoFundMewas set up for the Acuna family in hopes of raising funds to cover his funeral costs. At this time, the page has raised $10,372.
In May 2014, a bounce house injured three children as ittumbled hundreds of feetin New York. A month later in Nevada,an inflatable slide was lifted three storiesinto the air and injured two people when it came down. In another tragic incident in 2016, a7-year-old girl from Englandwas killed when a bounce house rolled away with her inside.
source: people.com
