Correction appended
A Florida man was arrested on Friday for allegedly deflating a bounce house during a 1-year-old girl’s birthday party.
Charles Wotruba, 70, of Port St.Lucie, is charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct following the May 21 incident, according to TCPalm.
As Crime Online previously reported, surveillance cameras captured a man entering the backyard, deflating the attraction, then walking across the street. Though two kids were hospitalized, none of the partygoers were seriously injured.
Records obtained by TCPalm revealed that it took 25 seconds for the heavy plastic to bury the six children inside. This 30-second video shows several parents frantically running to rescue their kids from the collapsing Disney princess bounce house.
“Chaos. Absolute chaos,” Glenn Hunt, the birthday girl’s godfather, told the Today show shortly after the ordeal. “Some of the kids were crying. One of them actually was kind of traumatized by the incident. Another one when he was being removed, his leg got a little injured.”
Wortuba was identified as the culprit after the birthday girl’s mother, Deborah Romero, uploaded the incriminating footage to the homeowners’ association’s Facebook page.
“We were very nervous about the kids because it was extremely hot, and they were trapped inside the bounce house,” Romero told WPEC.
The septuagenarian refused to speak with officers on May 23. Police suspected that he intended to disconnect a disc jockey’s stereo equipment, according to the Associated Press.
Wortuba was released from St. Lucie County Jail on his own recognizance.
[Featured Image: Port St. Lucie Police Department]
Correction: An earlier headline on this story misstated the amount of children inside the bounce house at the time it was deflated. There were six children inside at the time.