A three-year-old girl enjoying a day out at the beach was killed when an inflatable trampoline exploded, an inquest has heard.
Ava-May Littleboy was on the beach at Gorleston, Norfolk, UK, with her family when the accident happened on July 1 2018.
Her aunt, Abbie Littleboy, and a family friend had taken the youngster to play on the inflatables at a funfair while the group were on a family holiday.
But something went wrong, and Ava-May was launched into the air, landing face down on the sands.
A witness told the inquest at Norfolk Coroner’s Court that Ava-May ‘went up so high, it was higher than my house, about 20ft (six metres),’ the BBC reported.
The inquest heard that a worker at the fair had stretched out their arms in a bid to catch the youngster but that it the incident had happened too quickly for her to be saved.
Abbie ran to Ava’s parents, Chloe Littleboy and Nathan Rowe, who went to their daughter.
In a statement read out in court, Chloe Littleboy, said she was ‘screaming.’
‘Although I was screaming I couldn’t actually cry. I just stood there shaking and screaming,’ she said.
Nathan Rowe said his heart was ‘scattered’ on the beach, and that he could never return.
Ava-May, who was staying with her family at a nearby holiday park, died from head injuries.
Earlier that day, she’d been bought a bucket and spade and kite to play with at the beach, the Daily Mail reported.
Chloe Littleboy added: ‘She was a perfect little girl. She was bubbly, never got angry and was always happy.’
Coroner Jacqueline Lake said the inquest would hear evidence on how Johnson Funfairs Limited acquired trampolines, carried out risk assessments and the companies working practices, but that the evidence would not include why the inflatable exploded.
The inquest is ongoing.
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