The death of a Victoria man at a Richmond trampoline park was an accident, according to a coroner’s report.
Jason Greenwood, 46, died in January 2018 after doing a front flip into a foam pit at Extreme Air Park in Richmond.
Moments before his fateful leap, he had requested that his family shoot a video of his somersault, said the report, released Tuesday.
He landed head-first after bouncing off a trampoline into the foam pit.
He was at the park with two of his stepchildren.
Greenwood failed to resurface after the jump and family members and bystanders began to dig through the metre-deep pit.
“The scene was very chaotic with a dozen or more people in and out of the foam pit and people still playing nearby,” says the report.
Extreme Air staff were alerted after Greenwood was found, unresponsive and upside down in the pit.
Witnesses who called 911 got conflicting instructions, with one responder saying Greenwood shouldn’t be moved, while another said the opposite.
It took firefighters 21 minutes to remove Greenwood from the pit. It later became apparent that an injury to his cervical spine had damaged his spinal cord, which stopped his breathing. He was pronounced dead in hospital.
Greenwood had a moderate level of alcohol in his system. The report didn’t specify whether that was a factor in his death.
What it did say was that “a more timely medical aid response with respiratory support” could have prevented his death.
None of the three staff members working at the park that day was trained in first aid or CPR.
They also were not aware of any instructions on how to respond to an emergency, other than to call 911.
Greenwood’s death sparked several lawsuits against the park and put pressure on the B.C. government to regulate facilities that, until now, had largely flown under the safety radar.
Greenwood’s wife and stepchildren are named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Extreme Air Park Inc. and its affiliates, filed in B.C. Supreme Court last year.
The company has denied negligence or breach of duty of care or failure to warn. It indicated that Greenwood might have been drinking alcohol that day, adding that he and his group signed a waiver acknowledging the dangers of using the trampoline park.
Another lawsuit by a different customer was filed last month, with claims of severe injury.
None of the allegations has been tested or proven in court.
In July this year, Technical Safety B.C. recommended that the B.C. government regulate such facilities across the province.
