WATERLOO -- Two companies that operated an inflatable slide will have to pay a Waterloo family $21,347.75 after the ride collapsed and injured a 7-year-old girl in 2002.

District Court Judge Todd Geer ruled Mike and Connie Featherstone of Gold Star Amusements and Jim Waknitz of Midwest Rides were responsible for the girl's injuries.

He also ordered them to pay punitive damages, because they disregarded the safety of others by staffing the ride with too few operators.

John and Lori Netty took the companies to court after their daughter, Alyson, fell 25 feet to the pavement when a balloon slide shaped like the Titanic ocean liner tipped over during the September 2002 National Cattle Congress Fair. Alyson broke her wrist.

The case went to a nonjury trial in November, and Geer filed his ruling Monday.

"The Titanic is an inflatable, unstable ride in which children are placed high above the ground, with a hard surface below. Hiring and failing to train individuals responsible for the safety of children placed in that position creates an obvious risk," Geer wrote in his ruling.

Gold Star and Midwest were ordered to pay $847.75 in medical bills, $5,500 for pain and suffering and $15,000 in punitive damages.

The defendants had argued they were insulated from punitive damages, because the ride passed a state inspection days before the accident.

Geer found the inspection was inadequate, because it certified the ride even though it wasn't tied down per the manufacturer's specifications.

But Geer also noted that, while the ride required an operator on the ground and a second one on top, there was only one person looking after the ride for much of the day of the accident.

And that operator was hired off the street that morning and was given virtually no instruction how to operate the ride.

The operator's supervisor had worked with the ride for about a year, but he was gone when the ride began to tip a little bit about 90 minutes before the accident and had to be corrected.

The supervisor was on break when the ride fell over.

Geer said the ride likely fell over, because too many children were on one side and it wasn't properly tethered.

Waterloo police told Waknitz to leave the ride alone after the accident until state inspectors could study the scene. However, the ride was deflated, and stakes were pulled by the time inspectors arrived the following day, records state.