Readers Agree That Trampolines Are Dangerous

Last week, Melrose Patch asked if you agreed with the American Academy of Pediatrics that children shouldn't use trampolines. The academy recently warned parents to keep their kids from using them because of the nearly 100,000 injuries linked to them every year, according to a Reuters Health report on the Chicago Tribune website. 

Melrose Patch readers had a lot to say about the risk of injury that trampolines carry, and it didn't seem that anyone thought they were an experience all children should have. 

• On the less cautionary side of opinion, Josh Chace had a trampoline as a child and said that the times he had bumps or bruises were the times he was "horsing around." "But the trampoline isn't going to cause some mysterious deadly injury," he added. "I can guarantee almost all of those injuries reported were because an uneducated individual was using the trampoline for an unintended purpose, unsupervised, or while under the influence." 

• Meanwhile, Leeroy argued that trampolines are more dangerous than guns and that a person can "go a lifetime of gun ownership without ever making a serious mistake, but it's pretty much guaranteed that if you go on a trampoline, that you WILL be hurt within an hour of total ride time." 

• Someone who "Onlyjoined Foraccess" and has worked with quadriplegic kids, agreed with the agency, saying that "kids' heads are relatively heavy and their neck muscles are relatively weak, so there is a much larger risk of a catastrophic spinal cord injury if a kid lands wrong." "It's not worth it, especially when there are countless safer alternatives." 

• Tom said his neighbors have a trampoline and that the children have gotten sprains several times playing on it. "Insurance companies should be performing checks on who they insure and charge extra premiums for the added liabilities," he wrote. "Why should my insurance premiums be pooled in to cover some one elses stupidity." 

What do you think of your fellow readers' comments?