Four Kids Hurt As Freak Waterspout Launches Bouncehouse 50 Feet Into The Air [Video]

A freak of Mother Nature sent a bouncehouse full of kids careening into the air, then crashing to the ground at a Fort Lauderdale Beach Monday. Four children, all under 8-years-old, were hurt, but none seriously.

“It was disturbing to see the bouncehouse go up and the kids, and the kids falling out like Tonka Toys. It didn’t look real,” witness Reggie Murphy told CBS Miami.

The entire ordeal was caught on a cell phone camera and posted to Facebook. A waterspout has been blamed for the incident, which came to shore as a mild tornado and left a path of destruction – including four hurt youngsters – in its wake, NBC Miami added.

On the frightening video, one can see the surprise waterspout – estimated to be 10 yards wide with wind speeds up to 85 mph – come ashore, ripping across the sand toward the bouncehouse, the Sun Sentinel reported. It also uprooted a second unoccupied bouncehouse.

“Everyone was screaming, ‘Oh my God, Oh my God.’ And then everyone started to run,” said witness Sophia Fuller. “It was coming from in the water and then it was coming to where we were sitting.”

The bouncehouse containing the group of kids lifted 50 feet into the air, blew over the beach parking lot, over a line of palms and four lanes of highway traffic, before both landed on the other side in a parking lot. Witnesses said children were dropping from the sky.

Three of the hurt children landed in the sand; it’s unknown how the fourth child was hurt. Shadaja Bryant, 5, was one of the injured – her left arm was broken.

“I was thinking I was about to die. I was in the bounce house and then it flew while I was in there, then I fell in the dirt.”

Waterspouts usually don’t come ashore to wreak havoc. One forecaster said it was probably caused by minor shower nearby that “had a little rotation with it.” However, it apparently was not linked to a thunderstorm nor attached to a cloud – which makes it a bit odd.

When it was over, two light poles had been popped right out of the ground, broken tree branches were strewn across the parking lot, and a basketball hoop was snapped in half, its glass shattered. And kids were dazed and hurt, some of them with bloody mouths and faces covered in cuts and bruises, others immobile on the ground as bystanders rushed to tend to the injured before paramedics arrived to take everyone to the hospital.

Among the hurt children, two suffered minor fractures and were released; one was kept overnight for observation, Local 10 added.

While the tornado that uprooted the bouncehouse – part of “planned family activities…provided by the city” a spokesman told the Sentinel – couldn’t have been prevented, everyone immediately asked whether it had been secured to the ground.

The aunt of one of the children questioned whether securely tying down the bouncehouse would’ve even helped – and it turns out, it didn’t.

Authorities confirmed the bouncehouse was secured. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt.

[Photo Courtesy YouTube Screengrab]