By Daniel Borunda
The El Paso Times
EL PASO, Texas -- Three children were injured Sunday when an inflated jumping balloon they were in was picked up by a whirlwind and carried at least 10 feet in the air and over a wall before crashing into a backyard three houses away.
The freak accident occurred while the children were playing during an Easter family gathering at a home in the 7300 block of Alpine in the Ranchland area of the Lower Valley.
Witnesses said a wind, described as a whirlwind or dust devil, broke the jumping balloon off a tether, blowing the balloon through the air across the street where it snapped electrical lines, went over a wall and fell into a backyard.
“They were up more than 10 feet in the air and they crash landed,” said Battalion Chief Rick Carson of the El Paso Fire Department.
Two girls and a boy (ages 2, 5 and 7) were rushed by ambulance to University Medical Center of El Paso. According to ambulance radio transmissions, a 5-year-old girl appeared to have a broken jaw and the 7-year-old boy possibly had a broken leg. A description of the younger girl’s injuries was not available.
Neighbors and relatives said some of the children were bleeding heavily from cuts to the head.
The incident occurred about 2:30 p.m. during a mostly calm afternoon, days after wind storms hit the city.
On Sunday, the peak wind gust recorded was only about 30 mph in El Paso, said meteorologist Joe Rogash of the National Weather Service. However, the warm weather was conducive for creating a dust devil, which are mostly harmless but in extreme cases can hit speeds of 60 mph, he said.
“My guess is it was a dust devil,” Rogash said. “They not only spin but the air also rises like a vacuum cleaner.”
The wind was able to lift the balloon with three children inside and the electrical inflation pump still attached.
Johnny Martin, one of the children’s cousins, said the jumping balloon is owned by the family. “They had it tied down,” he said.
Neighbors heard a bang -- what they at first thought was a car accident or an explosion. The noise was the balloon smashing into a concrete patio floor in the backyard of Victor Echegoyen’s home. The balloon deflated when it crashed.
“I thought it was just a balloon, not the kids,” Echegoyen said. “Then, I heard the children crying.”
Anita Rodriguez and David Frawley were among neighbors who ran to help after seeing other people running to Echegoyen’s yard.
“ ‘The kids. the kids,’ they kept yelling,” Rodriguez said.
The scene was hectic. Someone crawled into the deflated balloon and carried the injured children out. The children were bleeding. Relatives were crying. Rodriguez said she at first thought the balloon had exploded in Echegoyen’s yard but later was told what occurred.
“It never dawned on me the wind had picked it up,” she said. “I’m just starting to wrap my mind on how that balloon must have been sitting when the wind came.”
Copyright 2010 El Paso Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper