in thinking this wasn't her fault? (other people's children's accidents)

[LifeIsButtercream]

I was at an indoor play place yesterday with DD, and a friend and her DD (both DD's are 21months). There was a bouncy castle in the place, and my friend's DD was on it with a couple of other LO's who all seemed about the same age (pre 2's). I was a few metres away with DD helping her on a slide.

My friend was stood at one end of the 'tongue' of the castle (parents weren't allowed on it). At the other end one of the children had made their way to the edge, slipped and fell onto the (rather hard) floor. My friend was about 6-7 feet away and rushed over to the LO, and picked them up looking around for the parent. LO was crying and had a bumped head.

A mother comes rushing over, takes the bumped child and lets fire with a barage at my friend, saying "you should have stopped them falling! You could see they were near the edge!" etc etc.

My friend protested that she hadn't seen them in time, and was out of reach to have caught or stopped them, the mum declared that she was taking her LO to First Aid and my friend 'had better not leave' because if the LO was badly hurt she was 'going to sue you for negligence and endangering a child' .

Ten minutes later the LO was running around happily and the mother didn't materialise again. I know tempers often flare and rationality vanishes when LOs get bumped, but AIBU in thinking that my friend was in no way at fault for the child falling and was not responsible for ensuring that they didn't?

I would have complained about "crazy bouncy castle lady" and told the staff your friend was being verbally abused by her. Get the bitch thrown out!

Soft play places are evil and attract weird parents.
Avoid at all costs.

As an aside, but I feel an important one, the wetness at the bottom of the ball pool, is not water.
Oh, and the brown squidgy mark on your child's sock is probably not a raisin :)

"thank you so much" would have been sufficient.

Yes monkeyflippers used her crazy name

Thanks all!

I have shown this thread to my friend (she isn't a Mumsnetter) and it did reassure her. Bless her she was a bit upset, more because the child had hurt themselves and she felt bad that she wasn't in a position to stop them falling.

We kinda knew that the mother was a bit nuts but wanted to run it past you all (its easy to overreact when our child seemingly has had a nasty bump). I doubt she thought my friend was a member of staff, the staff there all wear hideous bright orange tops and stick out a mile. I guess the mother was presuming that as my friend was watching her DD on the bouncy castle then she was responsible for the welfare of all the others on there...... clutching at straws - proximity responsibility?

Once again thanks!

I can kind of understand the reaction of bouncy castle woman - she was obviously upset, and trying to rationalise to herself why it was somebody else's fault. No excuse - just trying to understand her thinking. Some people seem to think other people are just there to look after their kids.

The "better not leave" comment suggests she was actually well aware your friend wasn't staff.

BCW cocked up and let her child be injured through her own fault, then looked around for someone else to blame.
Happens all the time.
I hope your friend hasn't been put off the idea of helping a hurt child because of this, again, that happens all the time too.