A FATHER died and his four-year-old daughter was badly injured in France after a bouncy castle in which they were playing at a waterpark was blown skyward by high winds, prosecutors said today.

The 35-year-old man had been taken to hospital with his child after the accident yesterday at the waterpark in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Var, hugely popular with tourists in the summer. He died later that day. 

The structure, some 20m, lifted 50m off the ground at the Wonderland Waterpark, with both victims trapped inside, Draguignan prosecutor Guy Bouchet said in a statement.

The daughter’s life remains in danger, the prosecutor’s office said. It said the bouncy castle had taken off due to “strong gusts of wind” that were buffeting the area at the time after a spell of hot weather.

An investigation has been opened into involuntary homicide. 

Bouchet told AFP the park management had decided to suspend activity at the bouncy castle due to the weather at the very moment the accident happened. 

“How can a waterpark that had been accepted on the municipal territory to bring joy and happiness to children be transformed into a machine of death that strikes down an entire family?” Mayor Alain Decanis wrote on Facebook. 

He vowed the investigation opened by prosecutors would provide answers. The child, like her father, had to be resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest.

The Wonderland Waterpark opened only this summer some 40km outside Aix-en-Provence. – AFP, July 31, 2023.