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The bouncy castle was blown away by a gust of wind on Tuesday, January 4 at a Christmas market in Mislata, a municipality on the outskirts of the Spanish city of Valencia. Several children fell to the ground and were injured.
Nine children have been taken to hospital, two of them in serious condition. An eight-year-old girl died of her injuries the next day. A second 4-year-old girl passed away this week.
Organs
The 4-year-old girl’s father shared a video of her on Twitter. He wrote that she had a smile “that will not disappear.”
“I am saying goodbye to the world in a tragic and unfair way,” he wrote on Twitter, speaking on behalf of his daughter, who was named Vera.
Her organs are being donated, he says: “To five little friends I want to help. Be as happy as I have been.”
Text continues below the tweet.
The parents of the first girl who died, named Cayetana, have started legal proceedings. They are convinced that their daughter’s death could have been prevented, according to Spanish media. Their son was also on the bouncy castle at the time, but was not seriously injured.
“As a father I don’t know what to say, only that life can be so unfair sometimes. No mother or father is prepared for this kind of situation or to deal with this enormous pain,” Cayetana’s father said, in a letter published in a Valencian newspaper.
He described her as “the sunshine in the house,” and admitted that they have not yet had the courage to enter her bedroom.
The city announced a period of official mourning after the incident until Friday, January 7.
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Research into bouncy castles
The event comes just weeks after six children were killed when a gust of wind sent a bouncy castle 10 meters into the air in Australia. This tragedy, which is still under investigation, has called for better regulation of safety standards for bouncy castles.
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