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So an MBA in marketing makes you an "expert" on trampoline injuries.....got it....
My background in Orthopaedics for 20 years isn't as impressive as yours but I still won't let my kids have a trampoline....must have been imagining all those injuries I've been treating over the years.
Would also love to see the "studies" you have seen that put the danger of owning swimming pools higher than guns in the home....contradicts all data I have seen.
NO, it makes you educated in quantitative studies, implications and benefits, and human biases. . .
keep with the conservation guy
As for Guns Vs Swiming pools, from the book Freakonomics "Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. Molly’s parents know that Amy’s parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spends a lot of time at Imani’s house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly’s parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.
But according to the data, their choice isn’t smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn’t even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani’s house than in gunplay at Amy’s."
NO, it makes you educated in quantitative studies, implications and benefits, and human biases. . .
keep with the conservation guy
As for Guns Vs Swiming pools, from the book Freakonomics "Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. Molly’s parents know that Amy’s parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spends a lot of time at Imani’s house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly’s parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.
But according to the data, their choice isn’t smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn’t even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani’s house than in gunplay at Amy’s."
The problem with your statistics --- has Molly had swimming lessons? Do Imani's parents carefully watch the kids with the pool? If so her chances of drowning go way down. If Molly cannot swim and Imani's parents are careless and let kids in the pool area and don't watch them, the chances go way up. If Amy's parents keep the gun away from the kids, or if they leave guns laying around and let kids play with them, the risk factors aren't the same.
Same with a trampoline. Factors that change the risks -- net around the trampoline, location of the trampoline --- concrete, rocks, sharp objects near it, sand or playground mulch to make a softer landing, parental supervision.
Anyone with a background in statistics would also know how to assess the limitations of individual studies and that group results are not intended to be predictive of individual cases. Research is a great and useful tool for what happens on average within the parameters measured, not a how-to manual.
My kids aren't trampoline-age, yet. I admit, potential for trampoline injuries make me nervous, although we have not made a decision about what the means for the kids using one.
Last edited by eastwesteastagain; 09-25-2012 at 07:11 AM..
We had trampolines in summer camp. They were built into the ground, over 4-foot pits. The frames were wooden, with metal springs, and the canvas was very thick woven rope-like material of some unknown origin (not sure if it was a natural fiber or synthetic, or a combination of both).
A lot of kids got sprained fingers, sprained ankles, bumped heads. I think a handful over the years broke a bone. The vast majority, however, had no unpleasant incidences resulting from tramping (as it was called, back in the dinosaur age). We got to explore our inner gymnast, doing flips and twists, turns and donkey-kicks, playing "basketball" with our camp-mates (with the shortest in the group being the basketball, and the other kids bouncing us around the canvas).
There were no nets, because there was no "down" to fall. The canvas was at ground level, over a pit dug in the ground. There were counselors and other campers, I believe it had to be a minimum of 6 surrounding the tramp in order for any of us to jump. So if there were 6 kids and 2 counselors, then 2 kids could jump at the same time on the same tramp. There were 2 tramps so if there was a group of 12 or more, then we'd just use both tramps so no one got left out and everyone got a decent-length turn.
The trampoline was actually one of my most positive experiences in summer camp. Lord knows it wasn't the kids, most of them were spoiled rotten country-club types, whose sense of entitlement extended to the very air we breathed.
When we went to a camp reunion this year to celebrate the camp's 75th anniversary, I saw that the trampolines had been filled in. Apparently some of those snooty country club parents were incensed that Bitsy and Diddems broke a nail on the spring, and threatened to sue the camp unless they shut the tramps down.
One of the positive pieces of my childhood was shattered, when I saw those holes filled in and covered over with grass.
BTW: My second year at camp, I sprained my finger playing volleyball. It healed funny, and is now deformed. Oddly enough, volleyball isn't banned from camp. I guess Mummy and Father didn't have the right sway at the country club to make much of an impact
My guess is none of the parents even thought to ask for a quantitative study as we were bouncing up and down and flipping around having a wonderful time.
I've been thinking about it. I'm not sure if we were just a particularly coordinated bunch or what. Why did we do so many dangerous things when I was a kid yet end up with so few horrendous injuries? I can't think of one kid I went to school with who ever had anything worse than a broken leg. And we pulled some pretty wild stunts.
(The only kid who ended up in the hospital was hit by a car. She was walking in the crosswalk on her way to school. And none of us started getting driven to school because of it.)
Last edited by DewDropInn; 09-25-2012 at 04:12 PM..
"At age 18, Amaral found herself having to wear a leg cast after a wrong landing on a routine bounce.
"I fractured my right ankle jumping on a trampoline, not doing anything crazy, just jumping up and down" said Amaral, adding she was jumping by herself. "I came down on it sideways with my foot tucked in."
As this can happen on or off a trampoline the message shold be "Do not allow your kids to Jump"
I ruined my knees running as a teenager. So probably should not allow them to run either.
Now we have west nile virus running rampant - keep them inside.
Since most foods have some bad impact on health: Only allow them to eat broccoli.
You may have Radon in the basement so: Keep them upstairs.
Television is too violent and immoral. No TV.
Ok kids here is what you can do: Sit inthe kitchen and eat broccoli and look out the window at the neigbor kids jumping on their trampoline eating cheetos and shake your head about how irresponsible their parents are. Those kids have no chance of growing up into a "normal' adult who will keep their kids properly ensconsed in the kitchen eating broccoli.
Sorry, I am sick of the nanny state. My kids explore, try new things, get diry, ingest germs, play spots, climb trees, get bitten by wild animals, get cut, burned and broken - and heal. However they will also be able to take care of themselves in pretty much any situation. They will jump on trampolines in a reasonable manner if they choose to knowing the risks. In fact, they may even choose to become gymnasts. If they choose they will scuba dive, ride dirt bikes, aand help me cut down a tree with a chainsaw. Hopefully they will nto grow up to believe they can remove all danger and risk form their childrens lives and raise a pack of adults unable to look after themselves and make balanced decisions about risk.
Yep, trampolines are very fun, until you're sitting in a helicopter with your child and a couple of flight nurses who are carefully monitoring your unconscious child's vital signs, because the head injury he sustained at the trampoline park appears to be very serious. I've been there, and although everything was eventually fine, it was the most terrifying experience of my life.
You all feel free to bounce to your hearts' content. This family does not do trampolines. Ever.
Yep, trampolines are very fun, until you're sitting in a helicopter with your child and a couple of flight nurses who are carefully monitoring your unconscious child's vital signs, because the head injury he sustained at the trampoline park appears to be very serious. I've been there, and although everything was eventually fine, it was the most terrifying experience of my life.
You all feel free to bounce to your hearts' content. This family does not do trampolines. Ever.
How awful.
I was a flight nurse for many years, but never saw a single serious trampoline injury. Saw many cycling incidents, a cardiac arrest from a direct-sternal hit in baseball, plenty of neck and back injuries in football. Probably the most common accidental injuries were from the child's own home, swingsets, garden walls collapsing, poison ingestion, and more accidental drownings than one can imagine from buckets, tubs, streams, pools.
I grew up jumping regularly on a neighbor's trampoline, and I broke my arm falling off, but I was right back on as soon as the cast was removed, because you all are absolutely correct: Trampolines are tremendous fun! My son's experience was something else entirely. It was a complete accident and involved multiple jumpers on the equipment, something in hindsight I never should have allowed. He was smaller than the other two and just went flying, landing on his head and losing consciousness. We were very lucky that he didn't break his neck.
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