WELCH – A McDowell County mother says her daughter broke her arm at school after falling from a bounce house set up on a concrete gym floor.
Brittany Green filed her complaint last month in McDowell Circuit Court against the county Board of Education. Green lives in Jolo.
According to the complaint, Green’s daughter, identified as M.P., is a student at Bradshaw Elementary School. On March 10, the school had an inflatable bounce house set up on the school’s concrete gymnasium floor. The bounce house included a slide that didn’t have safety mats or cushioning at the bottom of the slide.
Students were sliding down the slide and landing on the hard gym floor, according to the complaint. It also claims school employees were monitoring and supervising the students in the bounce house, and it says no employees of the company that provided the bounce house supervised the installation and monitoring.
The complaint says M.P. ascended the bounce house to go down the slide but instead fell from the elevated bounce house and landed on the concrete floor.
Green says school employees called and told her M.P. had fallen and “merely bruised her arm,” saying they did not seek immediate medical attention.
“Once M.P.’s mother saw the pain M.P. was in, she took M.P. to the emergency room where M.P. was then referred to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon,” the complaint states. “M.P. fell hard on the ground and fractured her arm specifically at a growth plate.”
M.P. was required to seek medical treatment that resulted in her having two surgeries on her arm to try to repair the damage.
The plaintiffs accuse the school board of negligence for breaching its duty to provide a safe and secure environment for M.P. and its duty to exercise ordinary care to oversee her.
Green and her daughter seek compensatory damages for the physical, emotional and financial damages. Those include pain and suffering, emotional pain and suffering, emotional distress, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, annoyance, inconvenience, medical treatment, medical expenses, lost wages, transportation costs and more
They also see punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
The plaintiffs are being represented by Wesley H. White of Morgan & Morgan in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Rudolph Murensky.
McDowell Circuit Court case number 25-C-46
